ALA Day #2 & #3

This day was spent with less volunteering and more attending events. I overshot my commute by an hour so I ended up re-organizing my backpack and writing poetry before my first event.

My first event was a Q&A session with Dennis Lehane, author of Gone Baby, Gone, Mystic River, and Shutter Island. I actually haven't read any of his books but I've seen several movie adaptations. Since it was fairly early in the morning and I hadn't had any coffee yet I was hoping that he'd be funny. The woman sitting next to me assured me that he wasn't. But lo and behold, he opens his lecture with a blond joke. Dennis Lehane looks like a combination of Simon Pegg and the principal from Buffy the Vampire Slayer with a Bostonian accent and a very dry sense of humor. He read us a few chapters from his new book, Moonlight Mile, the sequel to Gone Baby, Gone. Afterward he took some audience questions.

Some interesting quotes about his writing style and where he gets his inspiration:
"I tend not to be a very judgmental human being and this attracts a lot of psychos to you because  I sit and listen to them. And they have the best stories"

"I'm a writer because of libraries." Dennis came from a working class family with no disposable income. They could not afford books so he got a library card for free and began to read books this way.

"I can't read books that don't have a love for the English language."

My second event was a Q&A session with young adult author, Ellen Hopkins. She authors books containing free verse and concrete poems centering around her real life daughter's addiction to meth. She writes other books on differing subjects, prostitution, abuse, but the format is still the same. She read from her newest book, Fallout, which chronicles the aftermath of the lives of Christina Snow's children and the affects her addiction has had on them. Her real life son is only 13 but Hopkins portrayed him to be 17. The other children in the novel are based on qualities from Snow's other five children, specifically the babies that were exposed to meth in utero: OCD, panic attacks. Her advice was to go back to your art, art heals. Discussing the books seemed a very painful ordeal for Hopkins, as she stumbled on her words a lot. I waited in line to get her autograph since they were giving away advanced reader copies of Fallout.

After the reading I had lunch with Danielle and her friend Rebecca where we discussed library shop and looking for jobs.

The rest of my day was spent sitting in on a meeting of the Best Fiction for Young Adults committee. I didn't get there in time to discuss the works I had read but did provide input on a few books. The committee was meeting early the next day to go over the last bit of the list of books and make their decision on what should make the list. There was one lone man on the committee and it was fascinating hearing them debate the merits of young adult literature. Another wonderful aspect of the committee was how they interpreted input from the teen committee who had reviewed the same books into their own critique. Even if no one on the committee liked the book in question, they agreed to push it through because the teens made it seem like the book mattered to them. The particular book in question that none of the adults seemed to like or felt was too graphic but the teens particularly enjoyed was By the time you read this I'll be dead, which discusses suicide and bullying.

I concluded the night by attending the Michael Printz Award Ceremony and Reception where I heard Libba Bray give the most fantastic acceptance speech as she received the Printz Award for her book, Going Bovine, something I recommend everyone pick up. Not all of the speakers were great, some were funny, some were loud, very loud, and some were less than personable. But they'd written something that impacted the Printz committee enough to want to nominate them, so they have important things to say.

Day 3 was uneventful. I was so exhausted from the events of Day 1 and 2 that I did not choose to go to the Library Advocacy Day Rally. I ended up watching a video of the events later on, but at that point I was so exhausted I could not imagine dealing with the sweltering heat and large crowds.

All in all I'd say it was a good Con. I want to go to the PLA conference in Philadelphia in 2011 now so I'd better start saving.

Settling Down and Keying Up

After a few weeks settling in Manassas, VA I've had a few more changes happen. Just yesterday I got a placement in the Gainesville Library for a volunteership. I start on June 17th and will be coming in for 4 hours every week on Thursday. My friends in the area say that it's a very small library and the Volunteer Coordinator for Prince William County assures me that the need there is great. I'm very excited to start.

In the past few weeks I've had two professional interviews: one for a children's librarian in MD and one for an academic library in VA. I was rejected for both of them, but I remain optimistic and continue to apply for jobs daily. I wanted to start a tally for the number of jobs I've applied for each day, but I find it more productive to keep track of interviews I receive instead. I haven't yet started beating the roads yet with my resume, though I did see a man in the Bull Run Library doing the same thing. I felt a hint of sympathy for him because he came in very nicely dressed with an attache case, asking for work. The woman behind the information desk politely informed him that there weren't any positions available at the moment, but that he can look into volunteering with the library instead. A few places I'm looking at in Manassas are Barnes & Noble or McCabe's Used Books, possibly working part time or volunteering to help shelve. We'll see how it goes.

ALA Annual is in a little over two weeks. I'm very excited and nervous so I've been stocking up on information to prep. I've saved event calendars for Public Libraries Association (PLA), YALSA, and ALSC. I don't know how many events I'm going to be able to go to along with visiting the Job Fair, but I at least want to have the information. I'm trying to get a friend to let me spend a night in her DC apartment so I can save a few bucks on commuting.

I've left both my part-time job and volunteer position in Maryland. The commute from Manassas takes about an hour and it's become too stressful, specifically when I have to fight traffic every day. Both of my employers seem very understanding and support the fact that I've relocated and need to find work where I am now.

I'm feeling very relaxed since graduating. I realize that I'm not going to get a full time job tomorrow and don't need to stress myself out trying to find one, but I am open to the possibility. Until then I can only take things one day at a time and continue to network the DC Libraries, JMU, and UMD.