Preparing to serve : some thoughts in anticipation of being on Best Fiction

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I don’t know if it was the dizzying prospect of having a part time job, or feeling flattered that someone I respect would suggest that I do it, or simply thriving on being over-committed, but I’m serving on the Best Fiction for Young Adults Committee 2013. Throughout my year of service, I’m going to try to provide a window into my experience sitting on the committee, showing you how the BFYA sausage gets made and hopefully interesting some of you in joining in the future.

When I was formally accepted as a member of BFYA2013, it started to really sink in what I’d gotten myself into. I hadn’t really read a book since the birth of my son in December, preferring to spend my time sleeping or staring at his fuzzy head. I’m used to reading 3-5 books over the course of Shabbat if I don’t have too many social commitments, and 1-2 during the week, so this steep decline was worrying. The email from the chair welcoming us all to BFYA2013 said we would read an average of a book a day for the year, and to see our friends now, because we wouldn’t have any time for them in the future. I pruned my RSS feed and YouTube subscriptions and pulled ARCs that fit in the brief (September 1, 2011 through December 31, 2012) off the shelf to start reading.

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Get involved! YALSA Seeks Volunteers for Selection Committees, Award Committees and Taskforces!

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This fall, YALSA will be making appointments to the following selection committees and taskforces! Put your passion for young adult literature to work! If you have experience in evaluating and selecting young adult materials, as well as time to volunteer your skills, please consider serving on a YALSA selection committee. The committees and taskforces are:

  • Amazing Audiobooks for Young Adults
  • Best Fiction for Young Adults
  • Fabulous Films for Young Adults
  • Great Graphic Novels for Teens
  • Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults
  • Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers
  • Great Graphic Novels for Teens
  • Alex Award
  • Morris Award
  • Odyssey Award
  • 2013 Midwinter Marketing & Local Arrangements Taskforce
  • 2013 Midwinter Paper Presentation Planning Taskforce
  • Readers’ Choice List Taskforce Read More →

YALSA Podcast #88: Best Fiction For Young Adults

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Our guest for episode 88 is Terri Snethen, Chair for ‘ the 2011 Best Fiction for Young Adults selection committee. Hear how it all came together for the committee in it’s inaugural year.

YALSA Podcast#88

If you prefer, you may download the podcast at the’ YALSA Podcast site and transfer the file to the mp3 player of your choice.

After listening to the podcast, you can check out the committee’s work by seeing what made’ this year’s list.

Change to Blogger Meetup Time & Midwinter Liveblogging

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Our blogger meetup at Midwinter, originally scheduled for Sunday from’  1:30-3:30, unfortunately conflicts with the teen feedback session for Best Fiction for Young Adults–which we are, in fact, live-blogging. Any bloggers, new or returning, planning on attending the meetup should come to the Best Fiction location (conference center room 14) instead. I’ll be there starting at noon, and we’ll keep the agenda informal as usual to accommodate folks coming in from other meetings.

In related news, join us for live coverage of the teen feedback session, Sunday from 1:30-3:30! If you’re not at Midwinter you can hear what the teens have to say and join us in discussing nominated titles. As always, we’ll do our darndest to stream live video from the session. You can join the session directly from the blog, or you can participate by using the #bfya hashtag on Twitter. You can also log in with your Facebook or Twitter profile to include your profile picture with your comments.

YALSA will also be liveblogging the Youth Media Awards on Monday morning, so if you can’t get into the official ALA broadcast, join the discussion with us!

Best Fiction Teen Feedback – Live!

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Now that the live session is over, you can replay the live blog by clicking on the viewer window below. We streamed live video for a portion of the teen feedback session, so be sure to check that out now that it’s archived.

Live Blog for Best Fiction for Young Adults!

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Want to hear what teens have to say about the nominated titles for our very first Best Fiction for Young Adults list? Check out the live blog! As we did at Midwinter in Boston, we’ll be streaming live video of the teens, pulling tweets, and giving real-time coverage of all the action. The session will open at 1:30 EST and close shortly after the feedback session ends at 3:30. If you can’t join us in real time, you can also watch a replay of the live blog.

There are several ways you can participate. If you’d like to log in through Facebook or Twitter, your comments will be published using your profile photo. If you’d like us to publish your tweets without logging in, you can leave your Twitter username in the comments here (warning: all your tweets will be published while the live blog is running!) or just use the hashtags #yalsa and/or #bfya when you tweet. You can also join the live blog by clicking on the viewer window that will be posted here.

YALSA Board Meeting 1/16/10

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The YALSA Board had a very full agenda yesterday for their first meeting of Midwinter and several important decisions were made, including:

  • Approval of the Selected Lists Proposal. The approval of this proposal means that YALSA’s Best Books for Young Adults List is now Best Fiction for Young Adults. Also, the Alex Awards will be expanded. The Committee working on the Alex Award will continue to select 10 Award winners, and will also publish a longer list of titles that the group considers the best adult books of interest to teens published during the past year. All of the top ten titles selected by YALSA’s selection list committees, Read More →