Catch my two panels on Thursday, 3/28, or find me at the Goddard College MFAW and Hamline University MFAC booths!

Thursday, March 28, 2019

10:30 am to 11:45 am

C125-126, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1

R158. Surfing the Green Wave: Engaging Environmental & Social Issues for Young Readers. (Shanetia Clark, Todd Mitchell, Eliot Schrefer, Sherri L. Smith, Cecil Castellucci) Stories shape the way we think and act. In this interactive panel, four award-winning middle grade and young adult authors discuss how they've sought to engage wicked problems like climate change, species extinction, and income inequality through fiction. They explore how literature is changing to address new problems, what lies beyond apocalyptic fiction, and the challenges of effectively engaging the generation that's inheriting global problems on an unprecedented scale

3:00 pm to 4:15 pm

C125-126, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1

R264. Companioning Loss: The Role of Children’s Books in Difficult Times. (Cecil Castellucci, Sherri L Smith , Carrie Arcos, Swati Avashti, Elizabeth Leung) A young reader writes to an author, “Before I read your book, I thought I was alone.” An author asks, “What book do we write for that child living in the back seat of a dark world?” From death to divorce, books have always helped young people grieve and find the way forward by mirroring and legitimizing their feelings. In these times of heightened crisis, such companionship is needed more than ever. Kid lit authors discuss writing books as witness, bibliotherapy, and lights in the darkness.