Finally fall

Despite the wonderful daily input provided by the interwebs, back-to-school time has me still craving a little face-to-face learning. Fortunately, I have an insanely full professional development calender for the next few months. I'm really looking forward to seeing so much of my PLN and fueling this dissertation thing with some fresh thinking.

ALSC Institutue, September 23-25. Though my patron demographic is more YALSA than ALSC, ALSC always gets my vote for friendliest ALA division. Atlanta's drive-able for me and the Technology strand includes "Transforming Gamers Into Readers" with David Levithan, feeding my obsession with Scholstic's multimodal forays! As a bonus, I'll get to see Susak Kusel and Susan Polos, who I met through the amazing ALSC Newbery course taught by K.T. Hornig a couple of years back.

School Library Journal Leadership Summit, October 22-23. I love the SLJ Summits because they bring in really smart speakers instead of the usual suspects and also eliminate so much of the obligatory lowest-common-denominator element when it comes to the tech-y side of our work. I missed last year because it overlapped our fall break, but I hope to see much of my PLN in Chicago this time. The fact that it's underwritten by generous corporate sponsors (no registration!) and tends to happen in really nice places are bonuses.

YALSA Literature Symposium, November 5-7. I went to the first YALSA Lit Symposium in Nashville in 2008 and knew I'd never want to miss it again, so Albuqurque was a must. I think ALAN is the only place I've seen a similar constellation of YA luminaries, and the Morris lunch was a don't-miss. I signed up for Angie Manfredi's "Body Positivity and Fat Acceptance" preconference, too, which I just know will be awesome.

NCTE, November 19-21, ALAN November 22-33. I attended NCTE and ALAN for the first time last year. They, unlike ALA, still recognize my student status (I am currently enrolled in TWO graduate programs, but ALA still won't cut me a break...I tithe to ALA), which makes attending more affordable. The legendary "box of books" at ALAN offsets my registration, and the chance to hear from so many YA authors (albeit in a rapid-fire format) is compelling enough to draw me, even to Orlando.

So what aren't I going to?

The AASL Fall Forum, November 5-6. It's in Portland where my BFF happens to live, but it conflicts with the YALSA Lit Symposium, which was on my calender much earlier.

Kidlitcon, October 23. Kidlitcon is a wonderful amalgamation of librarians, writers, bloggers, and readers, which I enjoyed thoroughly last year in Washington, D.C, but which conflicts with the SLJ Summit this year. I'll visit Minneapolis for AASL next fall, and Chicago is SO MUCH easier to get to....

Where will YOU be this fall? Looking forward to seeing you.