In My Mailbox (17)

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme hosted by The Story Siren.

I'm Alison. I've been blogging for almost five months. I review mainly YA with a few MG books and a weekly manga feature.

I had the wonderful opportunity to attend Kidlit Con 2010 on Saturday in downtown Minneapolis. We had a great group of bloggers, authors, and publishers in attendance.  Most of the audience was geared toward younger books than I typically read, but there was still lots of interesting information. 

Some of the sessions:

Blog Touring

Blog Platforms and Best Practices

Poetry Friday

Publicity Panel - Great Q&A with people from Flux, Lerner, and HarperCollins

And the Keynote address by...Maggie Stiefvater!!!!

Maggie was a great speaker. She's upbeat, funny, and rather perky in a way that you wouldn't expect from her angsty books. (I took pictures of Maggie speaking, but they all turned out with her in funny poses, so I'll do her a favor and not post them unless someone else from the conference puts up a decent photo).

I met some great bloggers and authors at the conference:

Authors: Swati Avasthi, Elissa Cruz, Kurtis Scaletta, Blythe Woolston.
Bloggers: Ms Martin Teaches Media, The Wormhole, Jen Robinson's Book Page, From The Mixed Up Files Of Middle Grade Authors.

There were many others there, but these are the ones I actually talked to.

Next year the conference is in Seattle. I'd recommend it!

Here are my books for the week:

Free/For Review

The Hole In The Wall by Lisa Rowe Fraustino (won Milkweed Prize for Children's Literature)

Bought

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater (I've already read this, but I got a signed copy!)

The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff

I wanted to buy many more from the conference, but this is all the cash I could shell out. I will be checking out  lots of library books in the near future, I'm sure.