Rgz NYC Host: The Ides of March!

Your NYC HOST, Micol, is here today! Yay!

Here she is!

The Ides of March...

...have come and gone, and along with them, a huge amount of YA fun and festivities at the 2010 NYC Teen Author Fest!

I have been on the road (literally around the world and back) since January, and therefore I wasn’t able to attend as many of the events as I would have liked. Not only did I have to skip out on some amazing panels, I also missed the NYPL Stuff for the Teen Age celebration (sniff),and one of the biggest book signings EVER (no, really)at Books of Wonder! Sixty-eight authors under one roof, no lie. Pretty amazing. Also amazing: the cupcakes for sale at the adjoining cafe.

Well, there’s always next year...

Through the Teen Author Fest, I did, however, get to participate in the Five Borough Read, with fellow authors Michelle Zink, Shani Petroff, Abby Sher, and Violet Haberdasher.

The morning got off to a rocky start. I arrived at the library of my appointed borough (Manhattan: the Upper East Side, for those of you keeping score at home) only to learn that the class that had been planning to come in for our presentation was not going to be able to make it after all. This was particularly tragic news as certain authors had traveled as far as 3 hours to join us.

Also tragic was the fact that I was “deputy” of this branch of the event and therefore responsible for sending the certain hard-traveled authors home with nary a reading. Yikes!

Thankfully, Violet H. had the brilliant idea of calling the local school and inquiring if there were any other classes that might be interested in a visit from authors. And lo, the good teachers/librarians/administrators at the Robert F. Wager Middle School totally made it happen! My merry band of authors and I trekked a few blocks south and were treated to a library stuffed to the gills with very enthusiastic eighth grade students. In my (very fuzzy, sorry) iPhone pic you can see Michelle Zink holding court in front of a thoroughly captive audience. (Michelle Zink has that effect on people.)



We all had a blast and the kids were great!

YA authors are nothing if not resourceful. And I hereby promote Violet to Co-Deputy Emeritus. She earned it, yo. For reals.

Now I’m back in NYC, and getting back into my writing routine. I’m also back to fun and festive appearances, yay!--specifically one taking place at the Metuchen, NJ library this Sunday! The library will be dedicating its newly-revamped teen section, and I’ll be chatting, reading, answering your questions—and probably eating some cake. I hope you’ll join us!