Lofty!

It' s just about nine on this Saturday night, and I'm actually getting ready to go out. Beth and Sam won't be coming along, since Stasiu's on a Saturday night is no place for an eight-month-old child, and that's where I'm going to wield a bass.

Today was day one of the Kidlit Conference at the Loft, which is not the official title. First, I hadn't been to the Loft space, or Open Book et al, and it's pretty great. I had no idea there was a coffee shop there, with the wifi and everything, and it's only about a block from the Greenway, the part that runs up the lightrail line near the baseball building, whatever it's called. But the conference. I enjoyed it. Most excellent was the lunch. And I'm not just being typical me by focusing on the food. No no. What was great about lunch was the fact that every conference goer signed up for a table based on which member of the faculty would be the center (or something) of the conversation there. F'rinstance, I chose the Patrick Jones table, and therefore the conversation was focused on YA lit, mostly contemporary and realistic. I think the SCBWI conferences I've been to, both local and national, could take a hint from that idea, rather than just letting people sit at random tables and finding out (as happened to me) that they're stuck with a couple of people there on a lark because they want to write children's television, or a woman who lives with nineteen cats and wants to tell you why each and every one of them should have its own chapter book series. (An exaggeration . . . or is it?!)

Oh, by the way, since the last book-review entry here, I read Sara Zarr's Story of a Girl and Heather Duffy Stone's This Is What I Want to Tell You. Zarr's was fantastic. I didn't want to put it down. The protagonist (who reminded me not a little of my own dear Lily) was perfectly voiced and I loved every minute with her. The opening chapter, which sets up the prot's particular psychological background, is a wicked punch in the gut, and it sticks with you as you read on. Very powerful. Oh, p.s., everyone who reads this has to act as witness that I wrote Lily long before I read this! For serious.

Stone's book is also very strong. The absence of quote marks and the alternating POV could have been pretentious, but it worked. My one complaint about this book was that I never got a chance to breathe. I never felt like these characters had a chance to breathe either. While the pace is nice and urgent because of this, and the character's anguish is very clear, I wanted someone to crack a joke or drop some good sarcasm now and then to let me smile.