David*Macinnis*Gill.com

The pack­ing has begun!  In antic­i­pa­tion of this year’s ALA Annual Con­fer­ence, I’m pulling out the small roller board and com­puter bag so that I can plan what clothes to take along. Because US Air­ways charges an insane fee for checked bags, the small roller board will have to hold five days of clothes, includ­ing a nice suit and a pair of dress shoes because there’s some­thing not-kosher about attend­ing the New­bery ban­quet in a black t-shirt and shorts.

Beyond lug­gage news, this an excit­ing ALA because it’s the coming-out party for Black Hole Sun, my lat­est novel from Green­wil­low Books. With a release date of August 24^th, it’s already received ter­rific blurbs from Suzanne Collins, the author of The Hunger Games, Catch­ing Fire, and Mock­ing­jay, as well as Chris Crutcher, author of Dead­line, Iron­man, and oth­ers.  Black Hole Sun also got a starred review from Book­list and is gen­er­at­ing a lot of great buzz, if you’ll for­give me for cheer­lead­ing for my own book (Yay! BHS!)

Here’s my sched­ule for ALA. Come say hi!

SATURDAY, JUNE 26

7:15 am – 9:00 am: Harper­Collins Fic­tion Breakfast

12:00 pm – 12:30 pm: Harper­Collins Sign­ing Booth #2512–Signing: Black Hole Sun gal­leys; Soul Enchi­lada

SUNDAY, JUNE 27

8:30 am – 10:00 am: YALSA Cof­fee Klatch

7:00 pm – 11:00 pm: Newbery-Caldecott Banquet

MONDAY, JUNE 28

8:00 pm – 10:00 pm: Printz Reception