SLJ's FREE Virtual Teen Conference - Aug 10th

If you are a Teen/Youth Librarian or are interested in Teen Literature, School Library Journal's virtual conference (coming up August 10th) is perfect for you!

It is one of my favorite conferences to attend each year. You can't beat the price (free!) or the location (online). The way they designed it, you really feel like you're in a different location. They recreated a conference hall, where you can move to the different rooms or move from vendor to vendor.

You don't have to stay all day, so you can easily jump in to view the panels you want to see and then log out. If you aren't available that day (it is in the middle of most summer reading programs), still register! You can access recordings of each discussion later. If you can squeeze in some time to visit the vendors' hall, definitely do it. Some of them will give you free ebooks (yay!), you can chat with authors and publishers, and download other goodies.

Authors

This year's keynote speakers are Maggie Stiefvater (author of The Raven Cycle) and Meg Medina (author of Burn Baby Burn). And there are many other authors participating on panels throughout the day:

Nyrae Dawn, author, Turn the World Upside Down (Harmony Ink)

Stephanie Kuehn, author, The Smaller Evil (Penguin)

Jennifer Niven, author, Holding Up the Universe (Penguin)

Teresea Toten, author, Beware that Girl (Penguin)

Susan Vaught, author, Footer Davis Probably Is Crazy (Simon & Schuster)

Sarah Rees Brennan, author, Tell the Wind and Fire (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Traci Chee, author, The Reader (Penguin)

Kate Elliott, author, Poisoned Blade (Little, Brown)

Rachel Lou, author, The Bridge (Harmony Ink)

Amanda Sun, author, Heir to the Sky (Harlequin Teen)

Neal Bascomb, author, Sabotage (Scholastic)

Bridget Heos, author, Blood, Bullets, and Bones: The Story of Forensic Science from Sherlock Holmes to DNA (Harper Collins)

Robert Hoge, author, Ugly (Penguin)

Reyna Grande, author, The Distance Between Us (Simon & Schuster)

Leonard S. Marcus, author, Comics Confidential (Candlewick Press)

Sarah Miller, author, The Borden Murders (Penguin Random House)

Eileen Cook, author, With Malice (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Ryan Graudin, author, Blood for Blood (Little, Brown)

Leo Hunt, Eight Rivers of Shadow (Candlewick)

Lorie Langdon, author, Gilt Hollow (Blink)

Mindy McGinnis, author, Female of the Species (HarperCollins)

The author panels will focus on mental health in YA literature, genre-bending SFF, compelling nonfiction, and suspense & horror. Each panel has a Q&A at the end, so you can ask the authors your burning questions.

Teen Service Panels

In the afternoon, there will be teen service panels, where librarians will discuss topics like serving the underserved (teen parents, incarcerated teens, and homeless teens), college and career readiness, working with Instagram and Snapchat, and innovative programming.

Full Schedule

For the full schedule of programs and times, check out their website: http://www.slj.com/teen-live-2016/program.

Show a Panel to Your Teens!

Think your teens may want to watch some of the panels? SLJ gives you permission to show the panels to your teens.

Register for this year's conference

This is an annual conference, so look for it every August! We highly recommend registering and checking it out. This year's conference is next Wednesday (August 10th), so don't delay! If you are unable to attend, register so you can access the archives online. You can't visit the vendors, but you can watch all of the panels.