I was presenting an assembly for kids grades 3-8 while on book tour for the third PRINCESS ACADEMY book.
Me: “So many teachers have told me the same thing. They say, ‘When I told my students we were reading a book called PRINCESS ACADEMY, the girls said—’”
I gesture to the kids and wait. They anticipate what I’m expecting, and in unison, the girls scream, “YAY!”
Me: “'And the boys said—”
I gesture and wait. The boys know just what to do. They always do, no matter their age or the state they live in.
In unison, the boys shout, “BOOOOO!”
Me: “And then the teachers tell me that after reading the book, the boys like it as much or sometimes even more than the girls do.”
Audible gasp. They weren’t expecting that.
Me: “So it’s not the story itself boys don’t like, it’s what?” The kids shout, “The name! The title!”
Me: “And why don’t they like the title?”
As usual, kids call out, “Princess!”
But this time, a smallish 3rd grade boy on the first row, who I find out later is named Logan, shouts at me, “Because it’s GIRLY!”
The way Logan said “girly"…so much hatred from someone so small. So much distain. This is my 200-300th assembly, I’ve asked these same questions dozens of times with the same answers, but the way he says "girly” literally makes me take a step back. I am briefly speechless, chilled by his hostility.
Then I pull it together and continue as I usually do.
“Boys, I have to ask you a question. Why are you so afraid of princesses? Did a princess steal your dog? Did a princess kidnap your parents? Does a princess live under your bed and sneak out at night to try to suck your eyeballs out of your skull?”
The kids laugh and shout “No!” and laugh some more. We talk about how girls get to read any book they want but some people try to tell boys that they can only read half the books. I say that this isn’t fair. I can see that they’re thinking about it in their own way.
But little Logan is skeptical. He’s sure he knows why boys won’t read a book about a princess. Because a princess is a girl—a girl to the extreme. And girls are bad. Shameful. A boy should be embarrassed to read a book about a girl. To care about a girl. To empathize with a girl.
Where did Logan learn that? What does believing that do to him? And how will that belief affect all the girls and women he will deal with for the rest of his life?
At the end of my presentation, I read aloud the first few chapters of THE PRINCESS IN BLACK. After, Logan was the only boy who stayed behind while I signed books. He didn’t have a book for me to sign, he had a question, but he didn’t want to ask me in front of others. He waited till everyone but a couple of adults had left. Then, trembling with nervousness, he whispered in my ear, “Do you have a copy of that black princess book?”
He wanted to know what happened next in her story. But he was ashamed to want to know.
Who did this to him? How will this affect how he feels about himself? How will this affect how he treats fellow humans his entire life?
We already know that misogyny is toxic and damaging to women and girls, but often we assume it doesn’t harm boys or men a lick. We think we’re asking them to go against their best interest in the name of fairness or love. But that hatred, that animosity, that fear in little Logan, that isn’t in his best interest. The oppressor is always damaged by believing and treating others as less than fully human. Always. Nobody wins. Everybody loses.
We humans have a peculiar tendency to assume either/or scenarios despite all logic. Obviously it’s NOT “either men matter OR women do.” It’s NOT “we can give boys books about boys OR books about girls.” It’s NOT “men are important to this industry OR women are."
It’s not either/or. It’s AND.
We can celebrate boys AND girls. We can read about boys AND girls. We can listen to women AND men. We can honor and respect women AND men. And And And. I know this seems obvious and simplistic, but how often have you assumed that a boy reader would only read a book about boys? I have. Have you preselected books for a boy and only offered him books about boys? I’ve done that in the past. And if not, I’ve caught myself and others kind of apologizing about it. "I think you’ll enjoy this book EVEN THOUGH it’s about a girl!” They hear that even though. They know what we mean. And they absorb it as truth.
I met little Logan at the same assembly where I noticed that all the 7th and 8th graders were girls. Later, a teacher told me that the administration only invited the middle school girls to my assembly. Because I’m a woman. I asked, and when they’d had a male author, all the kids were invited. Again reinforcing the falsehood that what men say is universally important but what women say only applies to girls.
One 8th grade boy was a big fan of one of my books and had wanted to come, so the teacher had gotten special permission for him to attend, but by then he was too embarrassed. Ashamed to want to hear a woman speak. Ashamed to care about the thoughts of a girl.
A few days later, I tweeted about how the school didn’t invite the middle school boys. And to my surprise, twitter responded. Twitter was outraged. I was blown away. I’ve been talking about these issues for over a decade, and to be honest, after a while you feel like no one cares.
But for whatever reason, this time people were ready. I wrote a post explaining what happened, and tens of thousands of people read it. National media outlets interviewed me. People who hadn’t thought about gendered reading before were talking, comparing notes, questioning what had seemed normal. Finally, finally, finally.
And that’s the other thing that stood out to me about Logan—he was so ready to change. Eager for it. So open that he’d started the hour expressing disgust at all things “girly” and ended it by whispering an anxious hope to be a part of that story after all.
The girls are ready. Boy howdy, we’ve been ready for a painful long time. But the boys, they’re ready too. Are you?
I’ve spoken with many groups about gendered reading in the last few years. Here are some things that I hear:
A librarian, introducing me before my presentation: “Girls, you’re in for a real treat. You’re going to love Shannon Hale’s books. Boys, I expect you to behave anyway.”
A book festival committee member: “Last week we met to choose a keynote speaker for next year. I suggested you, but another member said, 'What about the boys?’ so we chose a male author instead.”
A parent: “My son read your book and he ACTUALLY liked it!”
A teacher: “I never noticed before, but for read aloud I tend to choose books about boys because I assume those are the only books the boys will like.”
A mom: “My son asked me to read him The Princess in Black, and I said, 'No, that’s for your sister,’ without even thinking about it.”
A bookseller: “I’ve stopped asking people if they’re shopping for a boy or a girl and instead asking them what kind of story the child likes.”
Like the bookseller, when I do signings, I frequently ask each kid, “What kind of books do you like?” I hear what you’d expect: funny books, adventure stories, fantasy, graphic novels. I’ve never, ever, EVER had a kid say, “I only like books about boys.” Adults are the ones with the weird bias. We’re the ones with the hangups, because we were raised to believe thinking that way is normal. And we pass it along to the kids in sometimes overt (“Put that back! That’s a girl book!”) but usually in subtle ways we barely notice ourselves.
But we are ready now. We’re ready to notice and to analyze. We’re ready to be thoughtful. We’re ready for change. The girls are ready, the boys are ready, the non-binary kids are ready. The parents, librarians, booksellers, authors, readers are ready. Time’s up. Let’s make a change.
I’ve decided to tell you guys a story about piracy.
I didn’t think I had much to add to the piracy commentary I made yesterday, but after seeing some of the replies to it, I decided it’s time for this story.
Here are a few things we should get clear before I go on:
1) This is a U.S. centered discussion. Not because I value my non U.S. readers any less, but because I am published with a U.S. publisher first, who then sells my rights elsewhere. This means that the fate of my books, good or bad, is largely decided on U.S. turf, through U.S. sales to readers and libraries.
2) This is not a conversation about whether or not artists deserve to get money for art, or whether or not you think I in particular, as a flawed human, deserve money. It is only about how piracy affects a book’s fate at the publishing house.
3) It is also not a conversation about book prices, or publishing costs, or what is a fair price for art, though it is worthwhile to remember that every copy of a blockbuster sold means that the publishing house can publish new and niche voices. Publishing can’t afford to publish the new and midlist voices without the James Pattersons selling well.
It is only about two statements that I saw go by:
1) piracy doesn’t hurt publishing.
2) someone who pirates the book was never going to buy it anyway, so it’s not a lost sale.
Now, with those statements in mind, here’s the story.
It’s the story of a novel called The Raven King, the fourth installment in a planned four book series. All three of its predecessors hit the bestseller list. Book three, however, faltered in strange ways. The print copies sold just as well as before, landing it on the list, but the e-copies dropped precipitously.
Now, series are a strange and dangerous thing in publishing. They’re usually games of diminishing returns, for logical reasons: folks buy the first book, like it, maybe buy the second, lose interest. The number of folks who try the first will always be more than the number of folks who make it to the third or fourth. Sometimes this change in numbers is so extreme that publishers cancel the rest of the series, which you may have experienced as a reader — beginning a series only to have the release date of the next book get pushed off and pushed off again before it merely dies quietly in a corner somewhere by the flies.
So I expected to see a sales drop in book three, Blue Lily, Lily Blue, but as my readers are historically evenly split across the formats, I expected it to see the cut balanced across both formats. This was absolutely not true. Where were all the e-readers going? Articles online had headlines like PEOPLE NO LONGER ENJOY READING EBOOKS IT SEEMS.
Really?
There was another new phenomenon with Blue Lily, Lily Blue, too — one that started before it was published. Like many novels, it was available to early reviewers and booksellers in advanced form (ARCs: advanced reader copies). Traditionally these have been cheaply printed paperback versions of the book. Recently, e-ARCs have become common, available on locked sites from publishers.
BLLB’s e-arc escaped the site, made it to the internet, and began circulating busily among fans long before the book had even hit shelves. Piracy is a thing authors have been told to live with, it’s not hurting you, it’s like the mites in your pillow, and so I didn’t think too hard about it until I got that royalty statement with BLLB’s e-sales cut in half.
Strange, I thought. Particularly as it seemed on the internet and at my booming real-life book tours that interest in the Raven Cycle in general was growing, not shrinking. Meanwhile, floating about in the forums and on Tumblr as a creator, it was not difficult to see fans sharing the pdfs of the books back and forth. For awhile, I paid for a service that went through piracy sites and took down illegal pdfs, but it was pointless. There were too many. And as long as even one was left up, that was all that was needed for sharing.
I asked my publisher to make sure there were no e-ARCs available of book four, the Raven King, explaining that I felt piracy was a real issue with this series in a way it hadn’t been for any of my others. They replied with the old adage that piracy didn’t really do anything, but yes, they’d make sure there was no e-ARCs if that made me happy.
Then they told me that they were cutting the print run of The Raven King to less than half of the print run for Blue Lily, Lily Blue. No hard feelings, understand, they told me, it’s just that the sales for Blue Lily didn’t justify printing any more copies. The series was in decline, they were so proud of me, it had 19 starred reviews from pro journals and was the most starred YA series ever written, but that just didn’t equal sales. They still loved me.
This, my friends, is a real world consequence.
This is also where people usually step in and say, but that’s not piracy’s fault. You just said series naturally declined, and you just were a victim of bad marketing or bad covers or readers just actually don’t like you that much.
Hold that thought.
I was intent on proving that piracy had affected the Raven Cycle, and so I began to work with one of my brothers on a plan. It was impossible to take down every illegal pdf; I’d already seen that. So we were going to do the opposite. We created a pdf of the Raven King. It was the same length as the real book, but it was just the first four chapters over and over again. At the end, my brother wrote a small note about the ways piracy hurt your favorite books. I knew we wouldn’t be able to hold the fort for long — real versions would slowly get passed around by hand through forum messaging — but I told my brother: I want to hold the fort for one week. Enough to prove that a point. Enough to show everyone that this is no longer 2004. This is the smart phone generation, and a pirated book sometimes is a lost sale.
Then, on midnight of my book release, my brother put it up everywhere on every pirate site. He uploaded dozens and dozens and dozens of these pdfs of The Raven King. You couldn’t throw a rock without hitting one of his pdfs. We sailed those epub seas with our own flag shredding the sky.
The effects were instant. The forums and sites exploded with bewildered activity. Fans asked if anyone had managed to find a link to a legit pdf. Dozens of posts appeared saying that since they hadn’t been able to find a pdf, they’d been forced to hit up Amazon and buy the book.
And we sold out of the first printing in two days.
Two days.
I was on tour for it, and the bookstores I went to didn’t have enough copies to sell to people coming, because online orders had emptied the warehouse. My publisher scrambled to print more, and then print more again. Print sales and e-sales became once more evenly matched.
Then the pdfs hit the forums and e-sales sagged and it was business as usual, but it didn’t matter: I’d proven the point. Piracy has consequences.
That’s the end of the story, but there’s an epilogue. I’m now writing three more books set in that world, books that I’m absolutely delighted to be able to write. They’re an absolute blast. My publisher bought this trilogy because the numbers on the previous series supported them buying more books in that world. But the numbers almost didn’t. Because even as I knew I had more readers than ever, on paper, the Raven Cycle was petering out.
The Ronan trilogy nearly didn’t exist because of piracy. And already I can see in the tags how Tumblr users are talking about how they intend to pirate book one of the new trilogy for any number of reasons, because I am terrible or because they would ‘rather die than pay for a book’. As an author, I can’t stop that. But pirating book one means that publishing cancels book two. This ain’t 2004 anymore. A pirated copy isn’t ‘good advertising’ or ‘great word of mouth’ or ‘not really a lost sale.’
Authors share the magic of books to transport young readers via words and pictures to new worlds, sometimes fantastic and exotic and very different from our own, and sometimes comfortingly close.
Panelists: Shannon Messenger (Keeper of the Lost Cities 6: Lodestar), Judd Winick (Hilo: The Great Big Boom), Dan Santat (After the Fall), Shannon Hale (Real Friends), Dean Hale (Princess in Black), Lisa McMann (Dragon Captives) Moderator: Lucas Turnbloom (Nightmare Escape: Dream Jumper, Book 1)
2:15 - 3:15 pm: Autograph-Area Signing #AA09
Signing with Shannon & Dean. Books sold by Mysterious Galaxy: Real Friends, Princess in Black, Squirrel Girl, plus the first time the repackaged Books of Bayern are for sale with their beautiful new covers!
6 -7 pm: Horton Grand Theater
Panel: Superhero Family Feud
Bestselling, award-winning, comic-loving authors Margaret Stohl (Black Widow, Captain Marvel), Rainbow Rowell (Fangirl, Runaways), Jason Reynolds (Miles Morales: Spider-Man, Ghost), Cecil Castellucci (Tin Star, The Plain Janes), Shannon and Dean Hale (The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl: Squirrel Meets World), Ryan North (The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl), Nick Lowe (Marvel Comics editor), and other special guests battle to the finish in this superhero-centric Family Feud -style game.
FRIDAY
Noon-1 pm: First Second/MCPG Booth #2802, 2800
Book signing for REAL FRIENDS, plus giveaway: bracelets & posters
SATURDAY
1:15-1:30 pm: Booth #2329/Marvel LIVE set/Marvel booth
Marvel Live interview with Lorraine Cink
3:30 - 4:30 pm: Room #8
Keepin’ It Real Panel
Graphic novels featuring realistic stories about kids are burning up the bestseller lists and winning awards. Join some of the hottest comics creators who are working in this genre to discuss why their work is connecting with readers both young and old.
Panelists: Jennifer & Matthew Holm (Swing It, Sunny), Victoria Jamieson (Roller Girl), Shannon Hale (Real Friends), Nidhi Chanani (Pashmina), and Tillie Walden (Spinning); Moderator: Meryl Jaffee
SUNDAY
11am-Noon: Room 25ABC
Panel: Capturing Teen Angst Panel
Panelists: Shannon Hale, Dean Hale, Erica Henderson, Victoria Jamieson, Marjorie Liu, Scott Westerfeld, Moderator: Mark Waid
Noon- 1 pm: Room 4
Spotlight on Shannon Hale & Dean Hale
1:15 – 2 pm: Autograph-Area Signing #AA20
Signing with Shannon and Dean, books sold by Mysterious Galaxy
Some of you have followed the discussion on #ownvoices: the focus on having writers who are part of marginalized groups telling the stories of characters from those groups. That the story will be inherently truer if the author has lived that experience. And that supporting marginalized authors is vital.
Some have pushed back against this idea.
“It doesn’t matter who writes a story.” “Telling me what I can and can’t write is censorship.” “We’re all part of the human experience.”
I want to offer some context for perhaps thinking about #ownvoices in a new way. Analogies are never perfect and can easily backfire, but hopefully this will be a beneficial exercise.
Despite the fact that 70% of the US identifies as Christian, no where near that percentage of book, TV, or movie characters are explicitly Christian. Of the ones that do call out their Christianity, they often fall into one of three categories:
1. Hypocrites who judge everyone and yet secretly are the worst sinners 2. Brainwashed chumps 3. Hateful bigots
This can make us feel a little sick to our stomachs. We think, is this how non-Christians see us? But this isn’t me. This isn’t my family and friends. We’re way more complicated than these offensive stereotypes.
Since this has been our experience for years, how much confidence do we have in, say, a life-long atheist writing a book from the POV of a Christian character? Maybe they will get it right. Maybe the fact that they personally are and always have been atheist doesn’t affect their ability to explore a Christian character in an open-hearted, respectful way. Odds are they know a lot of Christians personally, and maybe they have studied Christianity and have a favorable view of it even if they don’t believe.
But do we feel confident that they could tell that story right? Have felt what we have felt as a Christian?
Take it further: imagine Christians aren’t the majority in this country. Imagine we grew up as one of the only Christians in school. That there’s never been a Christian president or governor or even mayor of your hometown. That Christian holidays fall on school days and work days with no time off. Imagine your kid is the only Christian most of their friends have ever met. Now imagine that the only books with Christian characters your child’s schoolmates have ever read are ones written by atheists. And some get it right, and some really don’t. Get facts wrong. Basics wrong. Tone wrong. Not only don’t get at all the intricacies of personal faith but fall into hurtful stereotypes, perhaps without even meaning to. That when the schoolmates look at your child, they see the stereotype they read in books.
Imagine that there are Christian writers, but they can’t sell their books. Non-Christian writers are seen as being more marketable, more universal, so more and more atheists write stories about what it means to be Christian, and Christian writers are overlooked.
Further. Imagine that this country has a long and troubled history of hatred toward Christians, of stripping us of our humanity. Of enslaving Christians. Of legal execution based solely on religion. Of putting Christians into institutions or trying to electrocute the religion out of us. Imagine that even today, millions of people in our country and prominent, powerful leaders actively campaign to keep us and other Christians from having the same civil rights as non-Christians. Imagine that important people on television and in government regularly claim that Christians are inherently more violent than non-Christians, that they believe dangerous things and are all potential murderers, terrorists, rapists. Imagine that nearly every day someone murders a Christian in this country not because of what they did but because of what they believe. Imagine that every morning when you send your child to school, you fear for their life.
Would that affect how we feel about trusting non-Christian authors to write books about us? Understand our complexities? Would we in those circumstances be more likely to champion #ownvoices?
But while I hope our personal experiences can help us empathize with marginalized people, we can never truly understand. In the US, Christianity is the vast majority belief system. Christmas is a national holiday. We pledge allegiance to “one nation under God.” In this country, we are the Default. White, Christian (bonus if also cishet able-bodied…), we are the default character in every movie, every book. Even if the story doesn’t specify “active Christian,” because we are the default it is assumed unless the narrative reveals actually Jewish! or atheist! or Buddhist, etc. We don’t have the experience of constantly being the Other. While I have (and odds are, so have you) experienced bigotry based on my religion many times, it’s simply not the same as the systemic racism and bigotry that people from marginalized groups face every day. Of living in a country where you are Other.
Please know that I’m not telling you what to write. No one can. There’s no divinely appointed committee somewhere that can grant or take away permission to write anything.
I personally have created characters from marginalized groups to which I don’t belong because this world is diverse, and even in fiction (especially?) I want to tell the truth. (While I have had diverse characters in my stories, I haven’t actually tried to write a diverse character’s story, if that distinction makes sense.) Writing the Other is more time consuming and harder in every way, but I’ve tried because I felt it was important to the story and just in general. I’ve made mistakes, and getting called out on those mistakes is a gift that helps me get better. What I’ve learned: approach this with love, respect, and empathy. And listen, listen, listen. Read books by #ownvoices authors. And ask myself, am I the right person to tell this character’s story? And am I doing enough to support marginalized writers and lift up their voices?
As Christians, we believe in the first great commandment: love one another, even as Jesus has loved us. Defensiveness is not one of the fruits of the Spirit. We instead try to be teachable, humble, non-judgmental. I’m so imperfect, but that’s where I try to start.
Today FUNNY GIRL comes out, an anthology of funny stories by girls, for anyone. Here’s the book:
And here’s a photo of the broads who wrote the stories. Image by Amy Ignatow. I’m the one riding the green space narwhal.
And here’s a post I wrote in May 2015 about girls and humor:
Elizabeth Bird (librarian, author, blogger) asked me to contribute to her upcoming anthology FUNNY GIRL. For the announcement, she wanted me to write a sentence or two about being funny and being a girl and a writer or whatever, and yeah, I got carried away. Here’s the stuff I sent her that was obv too long for her announcement article.
While there are moments of humor in my first two books (Goose Girl & Enna Burning), no one would rightly call these comedies. When I was writing Princess Academy, I remember going to NYC for something and having a meeting with my editor and publicist. They’d read an early draft of Princess Academy. They both said, “We’ve been talking about how funny you are in person but how that doesn’t come out in your books. Is there room for humor in this book? Is Miri funny?” And I thought, well, yeah, she is. She would totally use humor to defuse tension. So why hadn’t I written that? The truth is I think I’d bought into the idea that “girls aren’t funny.” I heard that hundreds of times growing up. And again as adults, with regards to movies especially: “women aren’t funny.” I’d swallowed the party line without realizing it. But I was beginning to question it. Are we really not funny? Not as funny as the guys? Or do people assume we’re not so don’t notice when we are? The answer is clearly yes since I’m hysterical.
Ten of my twenty published books could be considered comedies, and yet I’ve never heard myself referred to as a comedic writer. TEN BOOKS. Never been invited on a humor book panel (those are for man writers). And the books that I co-write with my husband (Rapunzel’s Revenge, Princess in Black) people always assume the funny parts are his. Hundreds of times people have pointed out parts that made them laugh and then asked, “Did Dean write that?” And most of the time, I had. Make no mistake, he is very funny and witty and clever. Too.
Here’s a little story. Fifteen years ago when Dean and I were getting married, we made a wedding website. One night at a get together with our old group of friends:
Mike: “Dean, I loved your wedding website. It was really funny. I kept laughing out loud.” Me: “Well, you know, he built the site but I wrote the content.” Mike: nods “You typed it?” Me: “I wrote it.” Mike: “You typed it up for him?” Me: “No. I wrote it.” Mike: “You helped him write it?” Me: “No, I came up with the words and put them together in sentences and wrote them down.” He was still so stumped. It took several more exchanges for him to get it. Later he returned. Mike: “I guess I’ve just always thought of Dean as the writer.” Me: “I just received my MFA in Creative Writing.” He returned later yet again. Mike: “I guess with couples, we’re used to just thinking that one of them is the funny one.” Me: “You and I were in an improv comedy troupe together.”
Mike is a wonderful human being and open-minded and a feminist and we’re still very close. And believe me, he’s been teased about this mercilessly by all of us for over a decade. But this is how deep the “girls aren’t funny” idea runs. Even when presented with direct evidence, so many people can’t see it! They keep seeing what they’ve been taught to believe.
So why does it matter? Why do kids need to see/hear/read women being funny? And hear adults acknowledging that they are funny? Because stereotypes shut down possibilities. The “class clown” is a boy. The actually truly funny girls in class are just “obnoxious” or “attention-seekers.” Boys who are funny are encouraged, laughed, cheered. Girls who are funny are told to behave, shush, sit down. Comedy is a gift to humanity. How sad and pointless life would be without good laughs. We need to see girls being funny, encourage them to develop their sense of humor, reward them for the cleverness and intelligence it takes to make jokes. They’ll be happier, more fulfilled human beings. And so will we. The more comedy the better!
LeUyen Pham and I are about to hit the road to tour for our new graphic novel REAL FRIENDS, a memoir about the ups and downs of elementary school friendship. Are we touring near you?
4:00pm Public Event @ St. Louis County Library Location: St. Louis County Library Headquarters, 1640 S. Lindbergh Blvd. Frontenac, MO 63131 Bookstore Contact: (314) 738-9384 Link: https://www.slcl.org/content/shannon-hale
11:15am Shannon Hale Presentation to Librarians/Educators Title: No Boys Allowed: The subtle ways we gender books and cut boys off from reading Location: Epic Room, Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge St, Toronto, ON M4W 2G8
12:15pm Librarian/Educator Lunch Participants: Shannon Hale, LeUyen Pham Location: Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge St, Toronto, ON M4W 2G8
10:00am REAL FRIENDS Presentation @ TCAF Location: St. Paul’s Church, 227 Bloor St E, Toronto, ON M4W 1C8, Canada Participants: Shannon Hale, LeUyen Pham Description: The dynamic duo of Shannon Hale and LeUyen Pham are teaming up again for the new book REAL FRIENDS! Join them as they explore the emotional roller coaster ride of friendship, from navigating the tricky waters of cliques and bullies to her never-ending struggle to stay in “The Group.” Come help kick of Kids Day!
11:00am REAL FRIENDS Book Signing @ TCAF (following presentation) Participants: Shannon Hale, LeUyen Pham Location: St. Paul’s Church, 227 Bloor St E, Toronto, ON M4W 1C8, Canada
12:00pm Draw-Along with LeUyen Pham Location: Beeton Auditorium, Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge St, Toronto, ON M4W 2G8 Participants: LeUyen Pham Description: Come and draw with LeUyen Pham (REAL FRIENDS)
12:15pm Prose to Comics/Comics to Prose PANEL @ TCAF Location: High Park Ballroom, Marriott Bloor-Yorkville, 90 Bloor St E, Toronto, ON M4W 1A7, Participants: Scott Westerfeld, Shannon Hale, Ryan North, Cecil Castellucci Description: The biggest names in YA books talk about how what they love about comics, the challenges of writing in a new medium, and if they think it’ll change the way they connect with their audiences.
2:00pm First Second Booth Signing - REAL FRIENDS Location: First Second Booth @ TCAF, Toronto Reference Library Participants: Shannon Hale, LeUyen Pham
SATURDAY, MAY 20 · SALT LAKE CITY, UT
5:00pm talk and signing @ The King’s English
and, 7:00pm talk and signing, in conversation with Megan Whalen Turner @ The King’s English Location: 1511 S 1500 E Salt Lake City, UT Contact: http://www.kingsenglish.com
We want to show love for this school and their outstanding robotics team in the form of a book drive. This is a Title 1 school with a very diverse population. Authors, you can sign books to Pleasant Run. Anyone else who can donate is much appreciated! Picture books, early readers, chapter books, and middle grade books most welcome, especially those written by and featuring people of color. Also early readers in Spanish would be a bonus as they have dual immersion language program for some kindergarten classes. Mail books to:
Pleasant Run Elementary
1800 N Franklin Rd
Indianapolis, IN 46219
If you have books more appropriate for middle or high school, this diverse district would love those too! Mail to :
Metro School District of Warren Township 975 N. Post Road Indianapolis, IN 46219 ATTN: Kathy Disney
Thank you! And congrats to the robotics team at Pleasant Run. You inspire us!
