PA Forward: Authors & Illustrators Speak Up for PA Libraries

On November 6th (or thereabouts) writers and illustrators from across the great state of Pennsylvania will be stepping inside libraries to celebrate the impact libraries have on our lives and to remind our communities of the importance of safeguarding these essential institutions going forward. I have been paired with Downingtown High School (West) and librarian Michelle Nass, and what a day we are cooking up—four presentations on the Berlin Wall and the library research that led to that book's creation, and an afternoon among high school book clubbers who are reading Going Over.

I'm delighted and honored to be involved. It's a huge program, thoughtfully developed and executed by a team of librarians—including Margie Stern, the Coordinator of Youth Services in the Delaware County Library System—and eagerly participated in by those many of us who have relied on libraries throughout our careers (and long before "career" was a word we even entertained).

This weekend, the 2014 Pennsylvania Library Association Conference gets underway at the Lancaster County Convention Center. I'm grateful to have been joined with writer/teacher/editor/friend Stephen Fried (Thing of Beauty, Bitter Pills, The New Rabbi, Husbandry, Appetite for America) and Neal Bascomb (The Nazi Hunters, The Perfect Mile, Red Mutiny) for a Monday, 2:00 panel on nonfiction. I'm grateful, too, for the chance to hang out with the guardians of books, otherwise known as librarians. Thank you to Karl R. for the invitation.

If you are at the event, I hope you'll find us.