In light of some of the multicultural lit reviews–and the ensuing discussions–posted here and on our sister site, it’s fortuitous that I recently ran across a link to Reading the World IX, A Conference Celebrating Multicultural Literature for Children and Young Adults, February 24 & 25, 2007 (thanks to Cynsations for the alert).
It’ll be held at USF, for those of you in the Northern California area, and keynote speakers will include Joseph Bruchac, Ashley Bryan, Debra Frasier, Darwin Henderson, Yuyi Morales, Teri Sloat and Jane Yolen. So if you missed Jane Yolen at the SCBWI conference this past summer (like me), this might be a good opportunity to see her speak.
RtW is a sweet conference. Good speakers. Lots of intimate sessions where you can really get good discussions going. A deep commitment to bringing together a wide range of cultural viewpoints. AND its in San Francisco.
On October 10, TadMack posted here about the SLJ article, “Hero, Victim, Monster? An author looks at depictions of sexual abuse survivors in YA fiction.” It grew out of a workshop I presented at RtW this year.
Thank you, Carolyn, for the recommendation and additional info! I think TadMack and I are both thinking seriously about attending. The price is really reasonable, so it won’t totally empty my wallet!
So … you’re advocating skipping out on Asilomar in favor of something local, more intimate, and focused on a single, interesting topic, instead of scattered all over the place? A conference which focuses on, oh, writing, as opposed to marketing, illustrating, and any number of other things? Heresy!
I’ll be there, too, and would love to meet you and TadMack. (I’ll be giving a lecture/presentation on South Asian children’s literature.
That’s great, Pooja. TadMack and I would really enjoy meeting you. We’ll keep you posted on whether we can make it!
Yuyi Morales also just published a fantastic book — it’s great to get to meet the ‘local talent,’ and I look forward to meeting everybody, too!