The TLA Report post

Last week, Cyn and I had the pleasure of attending the Texas Library Association Annual Conference in Houston!  Cynthia signed the TANTALIZE series with Candlewick and also with Perma Bound Books, and I had the pleasure of my first conference signing of CHRONAL ENGINE with Clarion/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.  It was great fun to meet librarians and fellow dinosaur enthusiasts!  They cleaned us out of books and postcards...

Wednesday was the Texas Tea YA Author event, sponsored by YART (essentially speed-dating: pairs of authors serially circulated at tables filled with Texas librarians).  I was paired with Mary Lindsey, whose novel, SHATTERED SOULS, has one of the best covers ever (at least, one of the best that doesn't have dinosaurs :-)).  We presented our books and swag -- in my case, postcards, author feature brochures, and temporary dinosaur tattoos -- and had some great conversations.

On Friday, Cyn was named the first featured Spirit of Texas author for high-school aged readers. Check out the page for activities, curriculum tie-ins, and fun! The featured middle-school author was Andrea White.

Encounters in the exhibit hall or various other venues included out-of-state authors Toni Buzzeo, John Green, Shannon Hale, Kelly Milner Halls, Geoff Herbach, David Lubar, Greg Neri, Dom Testa, and Sara Zarr; and Texans Lynne Kelly, Don Tate, Kathi Appelt, Christina Mandelski, Elaine Scott, Jeanette Larson, Cynthia Levinson, Madeline Smoot, Salima Alikhan, E. Kristin Anderson, Bethany Hegedus, Jessica Lee Anderson, Debbie Leland, P.J. Hoover, Mary Lindsey, Jennifer Ziegler, Chris Barton, Joy Preble, Kelly Bennett, Nikki Loftin, Anastasia Suen, Jo Whittemore, Jeff Crosby, and Shelly Ann Jackson; and countless librarians and publisher marketing and editorial personnel.

Thanks to everyone at YART and TLA, all of the librarians who came to the signings and events, and to the publicity teams at Candlewick and Houghton Mifflin!

Here are some photos:

The Houghton Mifflin Harcourt booth

Signing in the Authors Area

PJ Hoover and Madeline Smoot and dinosaurs

Shannon Hale, Kathi Appelt, Jessica Lee Anderson, and PJ Hoover at the Texas Tea

Mary Lindsey, my comrade-in-arms

Toni Buzzeo

Jenny Moss

Greg Neri

Cynthia Levinson

Sylvia Vardell, Teri Lesesne, Lois Buckman

 See you next year!