My daughter Adrienne and I are in New York for Book Expo America. I’ll post more about the expo later in the week–but last night we went to the Jefferson Market Library for the Teen Author Carnival.
First of all, The Jefferson Market Library has to be the most beautiful library ever. Definitely the most beautiful I’ve ever seen.
So, we went to this lovely Greenwich Village library. We got there a few minutes late, so we missed out on the goodie bags–big bummer. There were 15 authors, split into two groups, speaking on panels. We walked up this grand, winding stair case and slipped in to the room where one panel was already speaking. We sat on the floor, because all the chairs were taken and no one was standing. I’m not sure what question was asked, but as we sat, I heard one of the authors talking about how his empathy only stretched so far and that he could not write anything nice about gym teachers. My first thought was: wow, I hope there aren’t any gym teachers in the room. Then I looked to see who the author was.
David Levithan.
I’ve written before by how hurt the fat shaming chapter in his book Every Day made me feel. It just makes me sad that this author who has such great empathy for some, can’t find it in himself to have any at all for others. It occurred to me to ask him about that chapter. But I was sitting on the floor in all my fatness–and honestly, I didn’t have the nerve. Maybe if I could have done it from a more dignified position.
The rest of the panelists, and the second panel were amazing. My daughter and I got to hear Erin Bowman, Alexandra Coutts, Susan Dennard, Mari Mancusi, Sarah Maas, Georgia McBride, Cristin Terrill, Kat Zhang, Cat Patrick, Leila Sales, Elizabeth Scott, Ann Stampler, Suzanne Young, and Allen Zadoff speak about their books and their characters. It was so cool to see so many people packed into that library seeking out their favorite authors.
Being there was super inspiring for me. It made me want to work harder, to be the kind of writer who gets to participate in this kind of event.
