Natasha Trethewey is author of Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast (University of Georgia Press); Native Guard (Houghton Mifflin), for which she won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize; Bellocq’s Ophelia (Graywolf, 2002) which was named a Notable Book for 2003 by the American Library Association; and Domestic Work (Graywolf, 2000). Her collection Thrall is due for publication in 2012.
She is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Study Center, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Bunting Fellowship Program of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard. Her poems have appeared in such journals and anthologies as American Poetry Review, Callaloo, Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, New England Review, Gettysburg Review, and several volumes of The Best American Poetry. At Emory University she is Professor of English and holds the Phillis Wheatley Distinguished Chair in Poetry.
Her first collection of poetry, Domestic Work (2000), was selected by Rita Dove as the winner of the inaugural Cave Canem Poetry Prize for the best first book by an African American poet and won both the 2001 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Book Prize and the 2001 Lillian Smith Award for Poetry. In her introduction to the book, Dove said, "Trethewey eschews the Polaroid instant, choosing to render the unsuspecting yearnings and tremulous hopes that accompany our most private thoughts—reclaiming for us that interior life where the true self flourishes and to which we return, in solitary reverie, for strength."
Natasha Trethewey will speak at the General Session on Thursday, November 17, at 6:30 p.m.
Linda Darling-Hammond is Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at Stanford University where she has launched the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education and the School Redesign Network and served as faculty sponsor for the Stanford Teacher Education Program. She is a former president of the American Educational Research Association and member of the National Academy of Education. Her research, teaching, and policy work focus on issues of school reform, teacher quality and educational equity. From 1994-2001, she served as executive director of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, a blue-ribbon panel whose 1996 report, What Matters Most: Teaching for America’s Future, led to sweeping policy changes affecting teaching in the United States. In 2006, this report was named one of the most influential affecting U.S. education, and Darling-Hammond was named one of the nation’s ten most influential people affecting educational policy over the last decade.
Among Darling-Hammond’s more than 300 publications are The Flat World and Education: How America’s Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future (Teachers College Press, 2010); Powerful Teacher Education: Lessons from Exemplary Programs (Jossey-Bass, 2006); Preparing Teachers for a Changing World: What Teachers Should Learn and Be Able to Do (with John Bransford; Jossey-Bass, 2005), winner of the AACTE Pomeroy Award; Teaching as the Learning Profession (co-edited with Gary Sykes; Jossey-Bass, 1999), which received the National Staff Development Council’s Outstanding Book Award for 2000; and The Right to Learn (Jossey-Bass, 1st edition, 1997), recipient of the American Educational Research Association’s Outstanding Book Award for 1998.
Linda Darling-Hammond will speak at the General Session on Friday, November 18, at 8:00 a.m.
Ned Vizzini began writing for The New York Press at the age of fifteen. At nineteen, he had his first book published, Teen Angst? Naaah… Ned is also the author of Be More Chill, the first young adult novel ever chosen as a Today Show Book Club pick, as well as one of Entertainment Weekly’s Top Ten Books for 2004. His novel It's Kind of a Funny Story received amazing media coverage, including The New York Times, Washington Post, People and Teen Vogue, as well as three starred reviews. It was made into a major motion picture in 2010.
Ned Vizzini will speak at the General Session on Saturday, November 19, at 7:30 p.m.
Yvonne Siu-Runyan is professor emertia from the University of Northern Colorado. Formerly, she was a classroom teacher for grades K-12; a district reading specialist and language arts coordinator for Boulder Valley Public Schools; and participated in, as well as chaired, NCTE’s Elementary Section Steering Committee.
Yvonne believes that “Stories matter!” and that “Literacy should empower all its citizens – the young and the seasoned – to learn about the world around us, and question the status quo, uncover social inequalities and injustices, and take social action.”
Yvonne has published articles in several literary magazines including Language Arts, The Reading Teacher; Journal of Reading, Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literature, and School Talk. She has also written the “Forward: Notable books for the Global Society – the Beginnings” in Breaking Boundaries with Global Literature for IRA and “Asian and Pacific Island Literature,” in Adventuring with Books, 13th edition for NCTE.
Yvonne Siu-Runyan will present at the General Session on Sunday, November 20, at 10:00 a.m.
Kathy G. Short has focused her research on global literature, literature circles, curriculum as inquiry, and collaborative learning environments for teachers and children. She is a professor in the program of Language, Reading and Culture at the University of Arizona and has worked extensively with teachers to develop curriculum that actively involves students as readers and inquirers. She teaches graduate courses on literature discussion, literature-based curriculum, the art of the picture book, global children’s literature, and reader response.
She was the co-editor of The New Advocate and Language Arts and has served on various award committees, including Notable Children’s Books in the Language Arts. Kathy has co-authored books, including Creating Classrooms for Authors and Inquirers, Learning Together through Inquiry, Literature as a Way of Knowing, Talking about Books, Stories Matter: The Complexity of Cultural Authenticity in Children’s Literature, and Essentials of Children’s Literature, 7th Edition.
She is director of Worlds of Words (wowlit.org), an initiative focused on encouraging thoughtful dialogue around literature to open the world for children, and is Past President of USBBY, the U.S. national section of IBBY, the International Board of Books for Young People.
Kathy Short will speak at the Elementary Section Get-Together on Thursday, November 17, at 4:30 p.m.
Don Gallo is the author/editor of numerous award-winning anthologies, including the ALAN Award for outstanding contributions to the field of adolescent literature. His young adult short story collections have proven to be quite popular with younger readers.
James Dashner is the author of The Maze Runner, The Scorch Trials, and The Death Cure. The Maze Runner trilogy is science fiction and is popular with boys as well as girls. The Death Cure, the last of the trilogy is due out in October. (Photo by Mitchell Reichler)
Mike Roberts is an eighth grade teacher at Rowland Hall Middle School, Salt Lake City, Utah and a member of the Middle Level Section Steering Committee, NCTE Consulting Network, and winner of the 2009 NCTE Edwin A. Hoey Award. Mike has organized the program and will end the session with ideas that will leave teachers talking and motivated.
Don Gallo, James Dashner and Mike Roberts will speak at the Middle Level Section Get-Together on Thursday, November 17, at 4:30 p.m.
Chris Crutcher is the author of thirteen books---ten novels, two short story collections and an autobiography. Prior to his work as an author, he taught school in Washington and California and acted as director of an Oakland alternative school for nearly a decade. That academic history coupled with 25 years as a child and family therapist specializing in abuse and neglect has infused his literary work with realism and emotional heft. His signature blend of tragedy and comedy have made him a favorite with teen and adult readers. He is also one of the most frequently banned authors in North America---a fact he considers an accomplishment, rather than a drawback.
A popular Voices from the Middle columnist for several years, Crutcher has been awarded the NCTE's National Intellectual Freedom Award, the ALAN Award, the ALA's Margaret A. Edwards Lifetime Achievement Award, the CLA's St. Katharine Drexel Award and Writer magazine's Writers Who Make a Difference Award.
Chris Crutcher makes his home in Spokane, Washington.
Chris Crutcher will speak at the Secondary Section Get-Together on Thursday, November 17, at 4:30 p.m. MacGraw-Hill School Education Group is proud to sponsor the Secondary Section Get-Together reception.
Billy Collins is an American phenomenon. No poet since Robert Frost has managed to combine high critical acclaim with such broad popular appeal. His work has appeared in a variety of periodicals including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The American Scholar, he is a Guggenheim fellow and a New York Public Library “Literary Lion.”
Collins has published nine collections of poetry, including Questions About Angels, The Art of Drowning, Picnic, Lightning, Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes, Sailing Alone Around the Room: New & Selected Poems, Nine Horses, The Trouble With Poetry and Other Poems, and Ballistics. A collection of his haiku, titled She Was Just Seventeen, was published by Modern Haiku Press in fall 2006. He also edited two anthologies of contemporary poetry: Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry and 180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Everyday, was the guest editor of The Best American Poetry 2006, and edited Bright Wings: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems about Birds, with paintings by David Allen Sibley. His newest book, a collection of poems entitled Horoscopes for the Dead, will be published in spring 2011.
Collins was appointed United States Poet Laureate 2001-2003 and was named New York State Poet Laureate 2004-06. He is a Distinguished Professor of English at Lehman College of the City University of New York, as well as a Senior Distinguished Fellow of the Winter Park Institute at Rollins College. (Photo by Steven Kovich)
Billy Collins will speak at the Middle Level Luncheon on Friday, November 18, at 12:30 p.m.
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Rebecca Skloot is an award-winning science writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine; O, The Oprah Magazine; Discover; and many others. She is coeditor of The Best American Science Writing 2011 and has worked as a correspondent for NPR’s Radiolab and PBS’s Nova ScienceNOW. She was named one of five surprising leaders of 2010 by the Washington Post. Skloot’s debut book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, took more than a decade to research and write, and instantly became a New York Times bestseller. It was chosen as a best book of 2010 by more than sixty media outlets, including Entertainment Weekly, People, and The New York Times. It is being translated into more than twenty-five languages, adapted into a young reader edition, and being made into an HBO film produced by Oprah Winfrey and Alan Ball. Skloot is the founder and president of The Henrietta Lacks Foundation.
She has a B.S. in biological sciences and an MFA in creative nonfiction. She has taught creative writing and science journalism at the University of Memphis, the University of Pittsburgh, and New York University. She lives in Chicago.
For more information, visit her website at RebeccaSkloot.com, where you’ll find links to follow her on Twitter and Facebook. (Photo by Manda Townsend)
Rebecca Skloot will speak at the CEE Luncheon on Friday, November 18, at 12:30 p.m.
Gail E. Hawisher is University Distinguished Teacher/Scholar and Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where she is also founding director of the Center for Writing Studies and the University of Illinois National Writing Project. Her work probes the many connections between literate activity and digital media as reflected in her books with Cynthia Selfe, Literate Lives in the Information Age (2004); Passions, Pedagogies, and 21st Century Technologies (1999); Global Literacies and the World Wide Web (2000), Gaming Lives in the 21st Century (2007), among them. She has also been honored to receive from her university the Lynn M. Martin Award for Distinguished Women Faculty and the Campuswide Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. Her most recent publications include the 2010 coauthored essays: "Globalism and Multimodality in a Digitized World" in the anniversary issue of Pedagogy; "Globalization, Guanxi, and Agency" in Cross-Language Relations; and "Moving Images of Literacy in a Transnational World" in C&C Online. With Patrick Berry, she and Selfe are currently involved in the writing and publication of Transnational Literate Lives in Digital Times, a multimodal study of how people from across the world take up literacy and digital media. With the imprint of Utah State University Press, she and Selfe are also founding editors of the new Computers and Composition Digital Press, an open-access, peer-reviewed, online book series.
Gail Hawisher will speak at the College Celebration on Friday, November 18, at 7:30 p.m.
Sandy Hayes and Bruce Penniman
Revisiting Our Pasts. How Can We Embrace Our Future? is the theme for this year’s Affiliate Roundtable Breakfast. NCTE Vice President Sandy Hayes, Becker Middle School, Becker, Minnesota, and Bruce Penniman, NCTE Author of Building the English Classroom: Foundations, Support, Success, and Western Massachusetts Writing Project, Amherst, Massachusetts will speak. The breakfast gives affiliate leaders and other NCTE members the opportunity to discuss issues of mutual concern. The breakfast also serves as a forum for the recognition of state, regional, and national affiliate activity. Affiliates and individuals will be recognized with awards for excellence, leadership development, membership growth, recruitment of teachers of color, intellectual freedom, multicultural programs, and publications, including journals, newsletters, and websites.
Sandy Hayes and Bruce Penniman will speak at the Affiliate Breakfast on Saturday, November 19, at 7:00 a.m.
Born in Columbus, Ohio, and raised in Greenville, South Carolina, and Brooklyn, New York, Jacqueline Woodson is a prolific author. She has won the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults, three Newbery Honors, a Coretta Scott King author award and author honor, and many accolades. She has also been a National Book Award finalist twice.
Visit her online at www.jacquelinewoodson.com
Jacqueline Woodson will speak at the ALAN Breakfast on Saturday, November 19, at 7:00 a.m.
Before Pam Muñoz Ryan became an author, she began her career as a preschool teacher and later, as a director of an early childhood program. Today, she is a full-time writer and the Author Recipient of the NEA's Human and Civil Rights Award and the Virginia Hamilton Literary Award for Multicultural Literature. She has written over thirty books that include novels for young adults, such as The Dreamer, Esperanza Rising, Becoming Naomi León and Riding Freedom. And picture books which include: Mice and Beans, Amelia and Eleanor Go for a Ride, When Marian Sang, and Tony Baloney. Her books have garnered many awards, including the Pura Belpre Medal, the Jane Addams Peace Award, the Américas Award, the ALA Schneider Family Award, the Tomás Rivera Award, the Siebert Honor, and the NCTE Orbis Pictus Award. She received her bachelor's and master's degrees at San Diego State University and currently lives in San Diego County.
Pam Muñoz Ryan will speak at the Books for Children Luncheon on Saturday, November 19, at 12:30 p.m.
James Patterson is the author of books featuring Alex Cross, Lindsey Boxer, Michael Bennett, and Max. In January, 2010, The New York Times Magazine featured James Patterson on its cover and hailed him as having “transformed book publishing.” Time magazine named him “The Man Who Can’t Miss,” and he is a two-time Children’s Choice Book Award “Author of the Year” nominee, a designation decided on by more than 15,000 children and teen readers. In the past three years, James Patterson has sold more books than any other author (according to Bookscan), and in total, James’s books have sold an estimated 220 million copies worldwide. Since 2006, one out of every seventeen hardcover fiction books sold was a Patterson title. He is the first author to have #1 new titles simultaneously on The New York Times adult and children’s bestsellers lists and is the only author to have five new hardcover novels debut at #1 on the list in one year—a record-breaking feat he’s accomplished every year since 2005. To date, James Patterson has had nineteen consecutive #1 New York Times bestselling novels, and holds the New York Times record for most Hardcover Fiction bestselling titles by a single author (63 total), which is also a Guinness World Record.
Anthony Horowitz is perhaps the busiest writer in England. He has been writing since the age of eight, and professionally since the age of twenty. In addition to the highly successful Alex Rider books, he is also the writer and creator of award winning detective series Foyle’s War, and more recently event drama Collision, among his other television works he has written episodes for Poirot, Murder in Mind, Midsomer Murders and Murder Most Horrid. Visit him at http://www.anthonyhorowitz.com/index.html
James Patterson will be joined by Anothony Horowitz and will speak at the Secondary Section Luncheon on Saturday, November 19, at 12:30 p.m.
Sandra Jackson-Opoku is an award-winning writer. She is the author of two novels. The American Library Association Black Caucus Fiction award-winning The River Where Blood is Born was listed in Best Novels of the Nineties: A Readers Guide. Hot Johnny (and the Women Whom Loved Him) was an Essence Magazine Hardcover Fiction Bestseller in 2001. Her fiction, poetry, essays, and reviews appear in the Los Angeles Times, Ms. Magazine, The Literary Traveler, Transitions Abroad, and many others.
She has taught at Columbia College Chicago, the University of Chicago, and the University of Miami, and currently serves as a Lecturer in the English Department and Fiction Coordinator of the Master of Fine Arts in Writing Program at Chicago State University.
Sandra Jackson-Opoku will speak at the CollegeSection/CCCC Luncheon on Saturday, November 19, at 12:30 p.m.
Joyce Sidman is known for her fresh, inventive poetry for children. Her award-winning books include Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night (A Newbery Honor Book), Song of the Water Boatman and Red Sings from Treetops (both Caldecott Honor Books), Butterfly Eyes (Cybils Award Winner), and This Is Just to Say (Claudia Lewis Poetry Award Winner). A recent starred review in School Library Journal said, "Sidman's ear is keen, capturing many voices. Her skill as a poet accessible to young people is unmatched." Born in Connecticut, Joyce now lives in Minnesota.
Visit her at www.joycesidman.com
Joyce Sidman will speak at the CLA Breakfast on Sunday, November 20, at 7:30 a.m.
Mawi Asgedom has written eight books that are used in thousands of classrooms across North America, and spoken to over 1,000,000 students and educators in more than forty states. A nationally recognized educator, Mawi has trained leaders at The Harvard School of Education, The Midwest Principals Center, and numerous international conferences.
Mawi’s bestselling memoir, Of Beetles and Angels: A Boy’s Remarkable Journey from a Refugee Camp to Harvard, has been read as a one-book, one-community reading selection by thousands of schools and communities, including the cities of Philadelphia and Green Bay. His teen success guides, The Code, Win the Inner Battle, and Nothing is Impossible, have also been used in thousands of classrooms. Citing the impact of his work, The Illinois Association of Teachers of English named Mawi the 2006 Illinois Author of the Year.
As a child, Mawi fled civil war in Ethiopia and survived a Sudanese refugee camp for three years. After being resettled in The United States, he overcame poverty, language barriers and personal tragedy to graduate from Harvard University, where he gave the Commencement address to an audience of 30,000.
Mawi Asgedom will speak at the CEL Luncheon on Sunday, November 20, at 11:30 a.m.