My Number One Fan

Today I had yet another opportunity to chaperone some kids from school at the Young Authors Conference. It’s one of the best field trips imaginable for someone like me, a teacher who gets to spend the day with a small group of highly motivated students while we listen to authors talk about writing. Every year I’ve gone it’s been a great time, but today might have been my favorite visit there. You know how sometimes you go into an event, like a big day or a big weekend or a vacation or whatever, and you have a checklist of things that you hope will happen? Today I was able to check off my whole list. 

First of all, the mechanics of the day went off with only the smallest of hitches. We had one student show up to school late and miss the field trip bus, but luckily the college where the conference is held isn’t far from our school, so one of her parents was able to drop her off. Later we had another student mix up the order of what time to eat lunch and when to shop at the book fair, but we all eventually found each other and everything was good. As far as field trips go, you really can’t ask for them to go any more smoothly. 

When we arrived we found seats in the great hall and settled in to wait for the keynote speaker. I put a photo on Instagram while waiting, and Abby Cooper, an author I know who was presenting that day, commented on the photo asking if I was coming to her session. I replied I was planning to, and told her how our school had only been allotted one ticket to any of her sessions. Since I had three students who had read her book this year, I asked if we could visit quickly during our shared lunch so they could meet her. She said yes, and the first item on my checklist was marked. As we all dispersed to find our first sessions, I passed by the room where author David LaRochelle would be presenting. Once upon a time, a few years before I was there, David had been a teacher at the same school where I teach now, so we’ve known each other for many years. I had a moment to say a quick hello to him, and checked off a second box.

The students are assigned tickets to attend presentations during the day. Being a chaperone, I got to crash the ones I wanted to. Of course I stood in the back of the room or the doorway to make sure all the kids had places to sit before claiming a chair, but I did get to sit down for the last session, which was the only time my feet really needed a break so that worked out too. Presenter #1 was author Jacqueline West, talking about how to construct characters. I was very much looking forward to seeing her since I had finished her first book, and had started it before I even knew she would be there presenting. It was a singular experience to hear an author talking about and reading passages from a book I had only finished reading myself days earlier. It also gave me some good context for some of the points she was making. After the session I had a chance to speak with her, letting her know how much I enjoyed the book and her writing, and telling her how I was suggesting it to my agent as a possible comp title for the manuscript I’ll be writing this summer. Another box checked off. The book of hers I read was the first one in a series, and as I had suspected they would be, the others in the series were available at the book fair. I scooped up all four and added them to my haul. Still another box checked off. 

Presenter #2 was Abby. She’s a very animated and engaging speaker, and kids really respond to her. I got to talk to her some more, see her present a second year in a row (and take a few more writing notes about working with settings on my phone), and know that the student who had been reading Abby's book throughout May and gave me daily updates each morning also got to see her. Another checkmark right there.

Session #3 was author Kelly Barnhill. Actually it would probably be more appropriate for me to introduce her as 2017 NEWBERY MEDAL WINNER Kelly Barnhill, for crying out loud. If you aren’t familiar, think of the Newbery as being like the “Best Picture” winner at the Oscars, but for children’s literature. It’s not a big deal; it’s a huge deal. Just having some time in the same room with her would have been awesome on its own, but I also got to listen to her talk about writing fantasy — and it could be said that my next manuscript has a fair-sized fantasy element to it. More notes taken, and another check box completed.

After that, there wasn’t anything left to the day but rounding up the kids, finding our bus, and heading back to school. All in all it was a very good day. However, I still haven’t told you about one of my favorite moments. 

It happened during lunch. While I was eating my preservative-rich Subway cold cut combo (a field trip staple for me, because I don’t see how it could possibly go bad in four hours), I was scanning over the other schools at the lunch crowd, looking for one from our district in particular. I walked around looking at name tags with no luck, so I started asking other teachers from buildings in our district if they knew where the kids from that other school were sitting. Eventually I found my way there. I went up to one of their chaperones and asked, “Do you happen to have a student named Emily with your group?” (Emily — not her real name.) The teacher said yes, and pointed her out to me.

Now, let’s step back to much earlier in the school year, during all the dark and cold and stupid of the winter months. A friend of mine who teaches Talent Development at both my school and at Emily’s, sent me an email telling me about one of her students who was such a voracious reader she was literally running out of books to read. She asked if it was possible for this girl to read one of my manuscripts; clearly since they are still as of today unpublished, there’s no way she would know about them. I told her sure, and said I even had a hard copy of “Following Infinity” in my classroom closet. I passed it on the next time I saw her.

It didn’t take long for this girl to finish it, and when she did the review I heard back from her TD teacher was glowing. Soon after she wrote me a letter telling me how much she loved it. For the rest of the school year after this, I passed on some other book recommendations for her, including sharing some actual books to read that were all new enough that it was likely she wasn’t familiar with them, including Abby Cooper’s debut from last year, “Sticks and Stones.”

This past Tuesday I thought to ask Emily’s TD teacher if Emily would be going to the Young Authors Conference. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she probably was. When I arrived at the conference and saw her school and mine had lunch at the same time, I figured it was worth looking around to see if she was there. 

And like I’ve already described, she was. I saw her eating her lunch in a little patch of sunlight and walked over. 


“Hi, Emily,” I said, smiling. 

She smiled back politely. “Hi!” I knelt in the grass beside her. Before I had a chance to say anything else, she looked at my name tag and her eyes opened wide when she recognized my name. I gave her a friendly teacher smile once it was clear she knew who I was. 

“I’d heard you might be here today!” I said. “I’m glad I found you. What was your first session?” 

She was literally flustered into being speechless, just smiling and repeatedly tucking her hair behind her ear. I think for a moment she had actually forgotten what session she had just spent an hour at.

“I loved your book so much!” she finally said. “It was so great!”

I smiled and thanked her, then we took a quick picture to let her TD teacher know we had met up that day. 

Later, while I was waiting in the book fair line, I thought back to that introduction and realized that little girl was probably my Number One fan, in two ways. First, she's probably my biggest fan, which I’ll define by her being someone who knows of me exclusively through my writing, and likes the writing for the writing itself. Friends and family and students can all read my work and enjoy it, but they will always have the context of a previous relationship with me that will, in some way, have a degree of influence on what they think of what I’ve written. She had no perspective like that. All she had was the story and the writing. 

And because of that, I think it’s probably also accurate to call her my very first fan, which felt kind of cool to realize. Most people at that conference saw presentations from or had encounters with three different authors during the day. Emily had four. From her reaction, it might have even been a bigger deal for her than it was for me, and it was a very cool moment for me. A big box on the checklist marked off.

So now I’m home after having a wonderful day, and it’s May 31. A little over a month ago I was on the phone with my agent Carrie (can I stop referring to her like that, and just call her Carrie? I think anyone who reads this blog with even semi-frequency knows who she is by now.) I was telling her about the new book I wanted to start writing this summer. We talked about the idea and where I wanted to go with it. Her advice at the time had been to focus more on just reading during May, and try to come up with some recently published books that would be good comparisons. We then agreed on a word count goal and a deadline for a check-in so she could see my progress. 

May ends tonight. June starts tomorrow. I have a long note on my phone with all kinds of new ideas about building characters, using settings, and developing fantasy after my time at the conference today. 

I’m very excited about getting back to actually drafting the story again tomorrow. It will feel good to get back into a writing habit away from the blog.

However, I have at least one other reason for getting back to work now: There’s a little girl out there in the world who is very anxious to find out what I’m going to write next.