Laurie Halse Anderson's Blog

If you’re a teacher or educator — or you just want an excuse to watch authors say fascinating, intelligent things — then you’re in luck! The Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators (SCBWI) has created a YouTube channel to showcase the footage they’ve collected over the years at their conferences:

“From the early days in the 1970s all the way up to the present, the Vault holds the advice, teachings, and musings of the biggest and brightest names in children’s publishing over the past 50 years.”

–SCBWI – About

Laurie is represented, in a clip from a 2011 keynote, right here:

You can peruse all the offerings on the SCBWI YouTube Channel. Enjoy!

Mark your calendars, friends — it may be digital, but Independent Bookstore Day is this Saturday, April 25th, and the celebration is already in full swing on Twitter. You can find participating bookstores, help support indies, find great reads by great authors, and hang out with other booknerds at the hashtag #VirtualBookstoreParty.

And, if you’re an audiobook fan, Libro.fm has a special deal on Laurie’s audiobooks (as well as many others). If you sign up with code SHOPBOOKSTORESNOW, you’ll get a 2-for-1 audiobook special, and 100% of your payment will go to your own local bookstore. Get the details at Libro.fm/IBD.

We are, obviously, huge fans of indie bookstore here at Team Halse Anderson, and there will be more news soon about some upcoming collaborations with indies in place of Laurie’s planned tour for SHOUT. So stay tuned, stay safe, stay healthy, and remember we’re all in this together.

Hello, friends! We’re living in unprecedented, unexpected times, and I wanted to give some updates and some useful tools related to questions we’re getting regularly in Laurie’s inbox. But first, in the immortal words of Leslie Knope:

We’re all in this together, and we believe that we’ll get through it together. Stay safe, stay healthy, take lots of breaks, and wash your hands. And maybe read some books!

Speaking of… on to the promised links and resources. As teaching moves to digital learning spaces, all of Laurie’s publishers have established guidelines for read-alouds over social media. Here they are, broken out by Laurie’s books:

Simon & Schuster (The Seeds of America trilogy [Chains, Forge, Ashes] and Fever, 1793)Macmillan (Speak)Penguin Random House (SHOUT, The Impossible Knife of Memory, Wintergirls, Catalyst, Prom, Twisted)

As you might have noticed, Laurie’s also been on Twitter answering questions, giving recommendations, etc. Since she’s not on tour, you can interact with her there!

But wait, there’s more. From Laurie herself:

I have revived my YouTube channel and am posting videos of myself read from my books and answering reader questions. The first book is Fever 1793, of course! Let me know what you think – and please post questions from you, or from your students or kids!

She’s not on a strict posting schedule (even Quarantine Life has its demands) but keep an eye out for new videos!

Sending good thoughts to you and your loved ones from Camp Halse Anderson

Laurie’s been fighting censorship efforts, both against her own books and those of others, for basically her entire writing career. She’s compiled many a guide and link to resources for educators, especially in regards to Speak, and we’ve just updated it!

The Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of the NCTE (ALAN) has compiled their own great list of resources to help any educator dealing with a challenge. Called Speak Loudly, it includes challenge reports, resources to deal with an active one for classrooms and libraries, position statements, organizations of note, and more. It’s comprehensive and so helpful; we’ve added it to the guide we maintain here, and we encourage you to bookmark it and share it amongst your own colleagues!

Check out the full guide, and please know how grateful we are at Team Halse Anderson for all the work teachers, librarians, and educators do to get books into the hands of the students who need them.

A message from Laurie:

With heavy heart, I’m postponing my SHOUT paperback book tour and cancelling my attendance at SXSWEDU.

I’m one of those immunocompromised folks you’ve been hearing about; staying home is the only safe option for me.

We’re investigating using tech for a live chat opportunity to connect with stores or book clubs who want to talk with me. Please watch this space for more details.

Wash your hands, my friends!

Let’s take care of each other, read lots of books, and make it through these challenging times in a spirit of compassion.

Will I see you on my SHOUT book tour in March?#SHOUTtogether#SpeakUp#DestroyRapeCulture https://t.co/fh1CzC321e

— Laurie Halse Anderson (@halseanderson) February 13, 2020

That’s right friends, Laurie is going on tour in March, for the paperback of SHOUT! We’ll have all the details up on the Events page soon, and in the meantime Penguin has you covered: check out her full tour details.

Entertainment Weekly has the SHOUT paperback reveal — and a Q&A with Laurie! Click through for the stunning cover, and for Laurie’s thoughts on what has and hasn’t changed, the writing process, and more.

That’s right — to our great delight, SHOUT has been chosen as a Goodreads Choice Award nominee for the 2019 Best Poetry category! Laurie is honored to be considered alongside the other amazing poets selected. You can check out the full list here; voting for the first round ends on November 10, and the semifinals start on November 12!

We’re doing a dance over here at Camp Halse Anderson, because Speak: The Graphic Novel, illustrated by the amazing Emily Carroll, has been nominated for a 2019 Eisner Award!

It’s been nominated in the Best Adaptation From Another Medium Category, alongside a slate of other excellent works. And illustrator Emily Carroll is actually up for TWO awards — her comic ‘Beneath the Dead Oak Tree’ is nominated for Best Single Issue/One-Shot! You can check out the full list on Newsarama; congrats and best of luck to all the nominees (although we are, obviously, a little biased). The winners will be announced on July 19, so stay tuned.

Hello and happy April! As many of you know, April is Sexual Assault Awareness & Prevention Month, or SAAPM. Laurie is not only a huge fan of RAINN (Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network), but a member of their National Leadership Council. They’ve got a full month’s worth of plans to promote awareness and help people find ways to take action. Laurie will be participating, and we hope you’ll join her! You can check out RAINN’s full plans right here, and follow along on social media with the hashtag #SAAPM.

The statistics are sobering, and so many people don’t know them. Here are a few handy graphics that remind us all what we’re working to prevent.