One thing I thought this book convention did especially well was their selection of authors. There was a nice mix of big names, steadily working authors, and newbies. Debut author Henry Turner's ASK THE DARK even came out the week of the event. There was also a diverse mix of authors, which is particularly important in Houston, currently the most diverse city in the US. Our students need to see that someone like them can have a career as an author. As Ally Carter said in "The Secrets That Bind Us" panel, just knowing S.E. Hinton was a teen girl from Oklahoma opened her mind to the possibility of writing professionally, and every kid deserves that. The diverse authors included Jason Rynolds, Aisha Saeed (Vice President of We Need Diverse Books), Lydia Kang, David Levithan, Guadalupe Garcia McCall, and Jen Wang.I noticed a few areas for improvement. One of the panels I attended was crowded and another was extremely crowded. I like the idea of teens getting to see as many authors as possible, but I think more smaller panels would help spread people out. Most of the panels included five authors. Another was that they stopped selling refreshments before the closing speech, at which point the event was supposed to go on for another two hours. I know I wanted to buy a bottle of water and just used the vending machines instead. I think many people could've still used a drink and a small snack at that point. I do give the event props for having multiple food trucks during the lunch hours. That was delicious.
I was a little late getting to the event because I had trouble finding Alief Taylor High School. (David Levithan assured me that his escort got lost on the way too.) The first panel I attended was "The Secrets That Bind Us" with Ally Carter, Henry Turner (who has the voice of a late-night DJ), Lindsay Cummings, and Justine Larbalestier. They briefly introduced their books and then launched into a Q&A. I was particularly interested in Cummings' story - she was bedridden for three years and did little other than read and write. She wrote THE MURDER COMPLEX when she was eighteen because MOCKINGJAY made her so angry. (I read it for this year's Cybils; it's a good book.) They had a variety of opinions on plot twists. Turner works his out in revision; Carter likes them best if they surprise even her; and Cummings plans them first because they're her favorite part. None of them liked rereading their work. When Carter needs to remember a continuity detail, she likes to ask Twitter and ask her fans to tell her if she's mentioned something before.
