Wednesday June 13, 2012: 6:30 pm to 8:45 pm -- Downtown Library: Multi-Purpose Room

Michelle Krell Kydd is a flavor and fragrance expert and award winning blogger who uses her training as a "nose" to bring stories to life. She is editor of an award-winning blog on smell and taste, Glass Petal Smoke.

This "Smell and Tell" workshop is perfect for food lovers and writers who are interested in smell and the autobiographical memories that it inspires.

This event is for adults and teens (grade 6 and up).

If he was a singer, this would be the greatest hits album. A director, this would be the director’s cut. But, among many other things, Wendell Berry is a farmer-poet – a poet of place, in Port Royal, Kentucky, at Lane’s Landing, his hillside farm, – and New Collected Poems is his pick of his work over the last forty-five years. These poems represent the face he would show to the world.
“I am done with apologies. If contrariness is my
inheritance and destiny, so be it. If it is my mission
to go in at exits and come out at entrances, so be it...."

This is a lovely, readable, satisfying collection of poems of all shapes and sizes – some as short as this:
“Suppose we did our work
like the snow, quietly, quietly,
leaving nothing out.”

His poems are quiet in their way, but often provocative, and they proclaim the farmer’s love and connection to land, work, family and the natural world.
“….our lives rise in speech to our children’s tongues.
They will tell how we once stood
together here, two trees
whose lives in annual sheddings
made their way into this ground,
whose bodies turned to earth
and song. The song will tell
how old love sweetens the fields.”

Sunday May 20, 2012: 3:00 pm to 4:30 pm -- Downtown Library: Multi-Purpose Room

Bestselling author, screenwriter and playwright Delia Ephron makes a special appearance at the AADL to discuss her career as well as her delightful new novel "The Lion Is In." The event includes a book signing and books will be for sale.

Delia Ephron's screenwriting credits include the hit movies "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants," "Bewitched," "You've Got Mail," "Hanging Up" (based on her novel), and "Michael." She was also the producer of the timeless comedy "Sleepless In Seattle."

Recently, Delia collaborated with her sister, Nora Ephron, on a play, "Love, Loss, and What I Wore," which just completed an acclaimed two year run off-Broadway and has been performed in cities around the world.

'The Lion Is In' is full of "smart, snappy dialogue" according to Booklist, and is the story of three women, who, one warm summer's night, go on the lam together.

Enjoy meeting this amazing author and learning about her life and work!

Ned Vizzini is the author of It's Kind of a Funny Story, Be More Chill, and Teen Angst? Naaah.. .. He has written for the 'New York Times' 'The Daily Beast' and season 2 of MTV's Teen Wolf. His work has been translated into seven languages and will soon be in Czech. He is the co-author, with Chris Columbus, of the forthcoming fantasy-adventure series House of Secrets. Forthcoming in the fall of 2012, is a new teen novel, 'The Other Normals.'
It's Kind of a Funny Story published in 2007 was also a major motion picture from Focus Features in 2010.

He is also a Judge for this year's It's All Write Teen short story writing contest. The panel of 10 judges will look at the finalists in three grade categories of 6-7-8 (Middle School), 9-10 (High School) and 11-12 (High School) and select the winners who will be announced at an Awards Ceremony on May 12, 2012.

With a background in cultural anthropology and ESL-teaching, award-winning author Laura Resau has lived and traveled in Latin America and Europe. Her experiences inspired her novels for young people-- What the Moon Saw, Red Glass, Indigo Notebook, Ruby Notebook, Jade Notebook, Star in the Forest, and Queen of Water. She lives with her family in Colorado.

She is also a Judge for this year's It's All Write Teen short story writing contest. The panel of 10 judges will look at the finalists in three grade categories of 6-7-8 (Middle School), 9-10 (High School) and 11-12 (High School) and select the winners who were announced at an Awards Ceremony on May 12, 2012.

Nina LaCour received a MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College and currently teaches English at an independent high school. She is also co-founder of 'Write Teen' a series of YA writing classes. Hold Still, Nina's first novel, was published in 2009 and is a William C. Morris Honor book, a Junior Library Guild selection, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, and a Chicago Public Library's Best of the Best Books of 2009. Nina won the 2009 Northern California Book Award for Children's Literature and was featured in 'Publisher's Weekly' as a Flying Starts Author. Her second novel Disenchantments, brings together influences of music and art on a group of friends as they decide what's next in life.

She is also a Judge for this year's It's All Write Teen short story writing contest. The panel of 10 judges will look at the finalists in three grade categories of 6-7-8 (Middle School), 9-10 (High School) and 11-12 (High School) and select the winners who were announced at an Awards Ceremony on May 12, 2012.

53 Finalists were honored on Saturday, May 12, from a pool of 350 submissions for this year's 20th Annual Teen Short Story Writing Contest.
Caitlin Horrocks, author of an applauded debut collection of short stories, This is Not Your City and a previous winner of the AADL contest
in 1997 spoke to a packed house of teen writers, their families and friends. She was inspiring and witty in her remarks. Below are the top nine winners in each of three grade categories:

Middle School (Grades 6-7-8)
1st Place - Elise Blaauw - Story/Expressionless
2nd Place - Sarah Kopacz - Story/Like Summer Rain
3rd Place - Kristen Hayden - Story/Shades

High School (Grades 9-10)
1st Place - Hannah Blaauw - Story/Glass Cage
2nd Place - Leon Pescador - Story/When the Sky Falls
3rd Place - Madeline Woods - The Rapid Evolution from Dumpee to Dumper

High School (Grades 11-12)
1st Place - Madeline Bradford - Story/Everything But Wings
2nd Place - Josie Benson - Story/Black Walnut
3rd Place - Vanessa Decker - Story/Sadie's Eyes

Congratulations to all!

Winning the Teen Short Story contest in 1997, Caitlin Horrocks will be back as a guest speaker at this 20th Year Celebration of teen writers. Caitlin's stories have appeared in Best American Short Stories 2011, and The PEN/O.Henry Prize Stories 2009, among others. Released in June 2011, This Is Not Your City a debut collection of short stories received praise, ". . .impressively sharp" and "appealingly rugged-hearted" (New York Times)

350 submissions were received this year from teens in grades 6th through 12th. All finalists have been notified and will be honored at an Awards Ceremony on Saturday, May 12, 1:30-3:00 pm in the downtown library's, Multi-Purpose Room. The top three winners will receive $250 for 1st Place, $150 for 2nd Place, and $100 for 3rd Place in three grade categories. All finalists will receive certificates honoring their achievement. Stories were judges by an impressive team of authors for teens.
We applaud all the teen writers for their creativity and talent!

Kelly Milner Halls has more than 25 books published, one of which is the amazing non-fiction title Operation Rescue: Saving the Baghdad Zoo, which tells the story of remarkable animals and the team that worked to save them. A recent release, Girl Meets Boy: Because There Are Two Sides to Every Story is a collection that she edited with a lineup of YA authors with a he said/she said telling of each story. Her shorter nonfiction has been published in numerous publications. She lives in Spokane, Washington.

She is also a Judge for this year's It's All Write Teen short story writing contest. The panel of 10 judges will look at the finalists in three grade categories of 6-7-8 (Middle School), 9-10 (High School) and 11-12 (High School) and select the winners who will be announced at an Awards Ceremony on May 12, 2012.

Bluefish is the fourth teen novel for Pat Schmatz. This latest book received a starred review from Horn Book Magazine, Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, and School Library Journal. In Bluefish, everything changes for thirteen-year-old Travis, a new student who is trying to hide his illiteracy, when he meets a sassy classmate with her own secrets and a remarkable teacher. Pat currently lives in rural Wisconsin.

She is also a Judge for this year's It's All Write Teen short story writing contest. The panel of 10 judges will look at the finalists in three grade categories of 6-7-8 (Middle School), 9-10 (High School) and 11-12 (High School) and select the winners who will be announced at an Awards Ceremony on May 12, 2012.