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I haven’t slept well this past week, which means I haven’t had energy to blog by the time I reach the hotel at the end of each day. But today was the Arkansas Curriculum Conference and something wonderful happened that I don’t want to forget:

1. The teacher who won a grant to buy copies of Ship of Souls for the boys in detention also won an award! During her acceptance speech, Jill explained how the boys’ interest in the book made the project blossom until my novel was being used across the curriculum—the boys were fully engaged, they learned about archaeology, they even made their own dust jackets for the book (which were amazing!), and fought over who would get to read The Deep next. Apparently they aren’t always attentive, but I had their undivided attention when I visited the detention center on Sunday. I’ve been saying for the past year that I feel I’m planting seeds. There’s really no way to know what kind of impact an author visit might have, but it was so gratifying to hear Jill talk about the boys and to know that Ship of Souls was, for at least some of them, the first book they finished reading. Yesterday I heard from a friend who teaches at Rikers Island; I’m hoping I can visit her class as well.

I have to be up at 4am to catch my rescheduled flight so the rest of the recap will have to wait. Dr. Dixie Keyes, outgoing president of ACTELA, worked so hard to make this trip happen and I can’t thank her enough. I met so many wonderful students and educators over the past five days! My keynote wasn’t great—a bit to academicky—but the rest of my sixteen workshops went well, I think, and it’s always wonderful to see kids who are excited about my books. I told everyone about Write Now! Make Books and hope lots of budding writers will publish their own books before long.

Ok, it’s just past 8pm but it’s time for bed. Still don’t have my marking done—grades were due last weekend—but I have a 9-hour journey tomorrow so maybe I’ll blog and grade along the way…

nite

z