David*Macinnis*Gill.com

This past week­end, I spoke at the South­ern Fes­ti­val of Books, a long-running book fes­ti­val in Nashville, Ten­nessee. Var­ian John­son and Heather Hep­ler joined me for a panel on “Heartache and Hope” in young adult lit­er­a­ture. Our crowd was small but inter­ested (and inter­est­ing), and we had a good time talk­ing books and the field of young adults books. After­wards, we bee­bopped up to the War Memo­r­ial for a sign­ing. I man­aged to give away all copies of Soul Enchi­lada and got a brief few min­utes to check out the ven­dor booths. My flight was early, so I missed the chance to hear other authors speak. I did have the chance to say hey to Alan Gratz and Lau­rel Snyder.

Many thanks to Human­i­ties Ten­nessee for pro­vid­ing the venue and the bag of Ten­nessee good­ies for authors. A shout out to Emily Mas­ters for mak­ing it all so easy. And a spe­cial thanks to my hosts, Helen Hemphill ( Long Gone Daddy, Round­about, and The Adven­tur­ous Deeds of Dead­wood Jones) and her hus­band Neal for giv­ing me a place to bunk, as well as invit­ing me to join them for the inau­gural Authors in the Round din­ner the first night of the Fes­ti­val. Helen is gra­cious and wel­com­ing, and her read­ing of Dead­wood Jones Sat­ur­day morn­ing was spot on–and hilarious. 

Next up, NCTE and the ALAN Work­shop in November.