ALA Cognotes D.C. Highlights 2010 - (Page 2)

Page 2 • Cognotes 2010 Annual Conference Highlights • WASHINGTON, D.C. Best-selling authors David Small and Audrey Niffenegger shared their experiences that led them to write graphic novels during the Auditorium Speaker Series on June 28. John Grisham Thanks Libraries By Kathryn Shields High Point University (NC) “I have a long, wonderful history with libraries and librarians. From a purely selfish view I want to say thanks,” said John Grisham as he began his talk in front of a large crowd of librarians who gathered to hear him as part of the Auditorium Speaker Series sponsored by Penguin, on Monday, June 28. Grisham, who will serve as the Honorary Chair of 2011 National Library Week, is an internationally best-selling author. He recently introduced his first-ever series of children’s books for 8-12 year olds, the first of which is entitled Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer and follows the adventures of a 13-year-old boy who is an amateur lawyer and unwittingly becomes involved in a high-profile murder trial. As a child, John Grisham’s family moved a lot for his father’s job, and he lived in various small towns in Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana. “When we moved we did two things immediately—joined the local Baptist church… and went to John Grisham the local library. The crucial point,” He got the idea to write Theodore he said “was always how many books you could check out in a week.” Their Boone from his daughter, who is house was always filled with the an elementary teacher. She told stacks of books that he and his three him about the kinds of books her siblings checked out from the library, students were reading, and none of and he remembers grabbing a book them were reading books about the and going to hide to “get lost” for a law. He came up with the idea of a few hours in a story. He also said 13-year-old kid who is an only child, “you wouldn’t be caught dead reading whose parents are both lawyers and Nancy Drew [because it was a girls’ practice together. “Theo doesn’t want series]…so you just didn’t get caught.” to go to ballgames, he wants to go to He thanked libraries for “creating trials.” Theo wants to be a famous places where little boys can go to trial lawyer or a judge. He knows discover books and a love of reading.” every judge in town, every lawyer, Grisham said he also owes much every policeman, every court clerk, of his early success as an author to and can hack into anything which, libraries and librarians. He was in- Grisham said, means that “Theo spired to write his first book, A Time is going to be in a lot of trouble for to Kill, by something he saw in a many episodes to come.” The book courtroom. The book took three years came out in May of this year, and to write, and his wife read each chap- Grisham looks forward to writing ter as he finished it. It was rejected more Theo books in the future. by numerous agents and publishers and was eventually picked up in 1989 by Windwood Press. They published 5000 copies, and he bought 1000 of them. So, he went to the local library and asked if he could have a book party there. His librarian called other libraries around Mississippi, and he took his show on the road, selling books from the trunk of his car for the rest of the summer of 1989. When he published his second book, The Firm, in 1991 “most of the encouragement came from independent booksellers and librarians.” Junot Diaz: His Life a Canvas By Kathryn Shields High Point University (NC) Junot Diaz exploded onto the literary scene in 1996 with Drowned, a collection of short stories and one of the first books to illuminate the lives of Dominican-Americans. His first novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize. Diaz grew up in New Jersey and received a BA from Rutgers and an MFA from Cornell. He currently teaches creative writing at MIT. Diaz was interviewed by Miguel Figueroa of the ALA Diversity Office as part of the Auditorium Speakers Series sponsored by Penguin on Monday June 28. Diaz said that of the institutions that shaped his life, “I would say the military, one [because his father and things we fall in love with as a kid, in many ways, become our lives. He also said that as a child of two illegal immigrants, living in bitter poverty, “that kind of a childhood leads you to think about how often young people are vulnerable, asked to endure tremendously challenging lives.” He felt, however that was a great canvas to build his art. Figueroa also asked Diaz what he felt it said about American life that his book won the Pulitzer Prize, which is given to an American author presumably writing about American life. Diaz said when we talk about an American nation, it is always better to talk about a collective than an individual. “Just because the Pulitzer committee nominated one book by a Dominican writer doesn’t mean that Latino writers are being acknowledged in the way they should be.” He noted that only two Latino writers have won the Pulitzer, and they are both male. Diaz spoke about an organization that he works with called Voices of Our Nation’s Arts. As an MFA student at Cornell, Diaz felt that he couldn’t talk openly about a lot of the issues that he was interested in writing about, such as gender, race, and sexuality. Through this organization, Diaz created the Voices Writers’ Workshop, a summer program that serves “as a place where young writers of color can come together and for two weeks talk about their writing, and if they want to discuss these issues, they can.” Of the footnotes in his novel, Diaz said that, in large part, they had to do with “my own love of the footnote.” Before he became a writer, he said that he wanted to be a historian. He did a lot of standard research for the footnotes, spending time in the archives, the stacks, interviewing people, and he also just sat around and waited for people to say something he could use. Diaz said that many people think it is incongruous for an artist to be teaching creative writing at MIT. Diaz said that “promoting the arts in a culture, in a society when the artist is the first person they think about throwing off the Titanic is a struggle. “I don’t mind being considered irrelevant; it’s a fight for me that I think is worth it,” he said. Junot Diaz much of his family are in the military] and the library, two.” His first love was reading, and “I think my greatest love would still be reading.” When he first saw the library at his grammar school, he said he felt what is often described as an “electric thrill of destiny … I was home.” I knew that this “utopian concept of books available to citizens for free, I knew that it was going to be my future, I knew that it was going to define me.” Figueroa asked Diaz how his own youth and childhood influenced his writing. Diaz responded that the great thing about youth is that youth feels “strangely eternal—when you are a young person, an adolescent, time feels astonishingly slow.” His mother always told him to “be careful of the decisions you make, because they could be your life” and he didn’t understand what she meant. Now he sees that a lot of the Secretary of Education Arnie Duncan shares a laugh with AASL Executive Director Julie Walker, left, and AASL President Cassandra G. Barnett, right, during an informal meeting on June 28 with the AASL board of directors and representatives from state-level school library organizations affiliated with AASL. http://www.americanlibrariesmagazine.org/sites/default/files/Cognotes%20Tues%20June%2029%20part%201_0.pdf http://www.jgrisham.com/ http://www.junotdiaz.com/ http://www.americanlibrariesmagazine.org/news/ala/arne-duncan-holds-dialogue-aasl-leaders

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of ALA Cognotes D.C. Highlights 2010

ALA Cognotes D.C. Highlights 2010
Librarians Rally on Capitol Hill
Exhibitors Add International Flair
Amy Sedaris Regales Audience At ALA Annual 2010 Closer
Junot Diaz: His Life a Canvas
John Grisham Thanks Libraries
Authors Recognized for Contributions to Children’s Literature at Newbery Caldecott Awards Banquet
Will Shortz Tests Librarians’ Puzzle Skills
NBA Star Dwyane Wade Honorary Chair of Library Card Sign-up Month
APALA Celebrates Its History, Accomplishments, Current Programs, and Members at 30th Anniversary Gala
Library Champions
Librarians Can Change Society
DEMCO/AILA 2010 Scholarship Awards
Dave Isay and StoryCorps: Preserving the Voices of Everyday People
Marlo Thomas Cultivates Seeds of Laughter
Kidd and Taylor: On Memoirs, Relationships
Revised Intellectual Freedom Manual Introduced
Toni Morrison and Libraries: An Intimate Relationship
Sir Salman Rushdie Putting Messages in a Bottle
Eppo van Nispen Inspires Librarians to Finish Strong
Technology Titans Reach Out to Libraries in ALA Technology Pavilion
Archivists and Librarians Working with Legislative Records Display Synergy at GODORT Session

ALA Cognotes D.C. Highlights 2010