What is the Sound of 40+ Bloggers Blogging?
Well, the first official conference of the children and YA literary bloggers has come to a close and it was, not to put too fine a point on it, a roaring success.
Now we hit our dilemma.
I am now blogging about a conference on blogging. And others, I’ve little doubt, are blogging about blogging, and so on and such and around and around it goes… Like a snake eating its own tail, it’s hard to know where to stop.
My person problem is that I shouldn’t be blogging about the conference at all. I should be blogging about the Eric Carle Museum reception I attended last week and how cool that little event was. Still and all, I’ll say a couple words about this past week-end first. I feel obligated to do is to ply you with random pieces of information too, though. Things like:
Did you know that Kelly Herold bears a striking resemblance to a young Judy Blume?
Did you know that at times Robin Brande sounds like Jennifer Aniston?
Did you know that they sell wine in Target stores in Illinois?
And so it goes.
My week-end began with flying into Chicago on Friday and having dinner with author Elizabeth Fama and her family that night. Note to the General Public: I highly recommend having dinner with Elizabeth Fama and her children. Wry, witty kids, great food, even better conversation, and I happened to be wearing a t-shirt sporting her teenage son’s now terribly famous Hippo character. Ms. Fama’s house was directly across the street from Chasing Vermeer author Blue Balliett‘s home, which was cool. Plus we discussed, amongst other things, the possibility of fellow Chicago resident Amy Timberlake (of "That Girl Lucy Moon" fame) and her adaptation of her book (done with Adam Rex) "The Dirty Cowboy" into a musical. I am THERE, babies!
What I learned during my time in Chicago was that it is best to stay in the hotel where the conference is taking place. Fail to do that and you run the risk of coming into the 7:45 a.m. *shudder* opening ceremonies late. Which I did. The CTA (Chicago Transit A-word) runs super duper slow on Saturday mornings and my 5:45 a.m. wake-up call was pretty much for naught.
So I walk into the Radisson and lo and behold there’s the conference room, front and center, and there are 500 people present. Do I exaggerate? Of course. But it feels like 500 people, and there’s organizer and author Robin Brande front and center handing me my name tag and allowing me to scoot in while Tasha Saeker of Kids Lit (the children’s literary blog that got me started in the first place) was discussing Kidlit Blogging, Part 1. I lurked quite happily for much of the time. I’m a lurker by nature. If I’m on a listserv, a Yahoo or Google Group, or a classroom I tend to keep completely silent.
Class act on the conference room too. I’m new to all this stuff so I was blown away by the bowls of peppermints, food in the hallway (continuous and throughout the day), and copious amounts of water. I’d show you how cool it all was… but the batteries in my camera died and I wasn’t able to replace them until 4 p.m. or so. So here is how Mark Blevis saw it.
But this is not what you want to hear. You want to hear about the conference attendees themselves, yes? You want to hear what it is like to step into a room and see face-to-face the people of whom you have, until now, only gotten the slightest inkling of lookwise. You know what I wanted? I wanted to walk into that room and have it be like I was playing a game of The Sims. I wanted to see, floating above each person’s head, a small spinning box containing the front page of their blog/podcast/website. And for authors I wanted their book covers to be spinning there as well. How hard would that have been? It’ll happen someday, mark my words. Later on, people would discuss whether or not each blogger looked and sounded like their online "voice". Not all did.
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(CONTINUED IN PART TWO)
Filed under: Uncategorized
About Betsy Bird
Betsy Bird is currently the Collection Development Manager of the Evanston Public Library system and a former Materials Specialist for New York Public Library. She has served on Newbery, written for Kirkus, and has done other lovely little things that she'd love to tell you about but that she's sure you'd find more interesting to hear of in person. Her opinions are her own and do not reflect those of EPL, SLJ, or any of the other acronyms you might be able to name. Follow her on BlueSky at: @fuse8.bsky.social
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Judy Blume? Well, I can’t complain about that comparison! I have no idea what I look like, but she’s nice looking 🙂
P.S. It was FABULOUS to meet you, Betsy!
Sorry…still drinking coffee…
Kelly Herold and Robin Brande sell wine in a Target? They work together?
*is soooo surprised****
The Target line is explained later in the piece. And Kelly, Judy Blume is GORGEOUS. Just FYI.
B: You won the kids over, and you more than kept up with their frenetic pop-culture/Internet/gaming banter — proving that you’re not just a bookish librarian…you’re a HIP bookish librarian! And, self-centered as she is, Hippo always appreciates a good plug. Thanks.
Great to see you, Betsy! Now I can be SLIGHTLY less jealous of kidlit drinks night! You know, after the Target excursion. . .
It was terrific to meet you in person. A good time was, indeed, had by all.