APALA Award, Upcoming Events, and eSims for Gaza

Dear friends,

Thank you for signing up to get author news from me. I’ve switched newsletter providers, so I hope you dig the new look.

On January 22nd, the American Library Association (ALA) announced its selected top books, digital media, video and audio books for children and young adults (including the Caldecott, Coretta Scott King, Newbery, and Printz awards) at its LibLearnX event in Baltimore. I was honored, and frankly blown away, to learn that I’D RATHER BURN THAN BLOOM was given the APALA Award for Asian American Literature for Young Adult/Youth Literature.

I’m so grateful to the librarians on the selection committee for this honor, and for all the work they do for their communities. (You can watch the webcast of the announcements here – so many amazing books were honored.) Libraries are the best!

I will be traveling to the ALA Annual Conference to accept the award in San Diego this June, and I have already had a total of 2 nightmares about my speech!

In other news…

Speaking of libraries: on March 8th, I’ll be doing an online event with the New York Public Library as part of their NYPL TeenLIVE programming—TeenLIVE events at The New York Public Library feature thought-provoking conversations, real debates, and exciting performances with your favorite authors, artists, filmmakers, musicians, fashionistas, and more. You can register for this event here. 

Recently, I’ve been going on visits to schools as an author. I even got to visit with a group of students at my own high school, La Cueva High School, which was so fun and surreal. I’ve also visited the High School for Art and Design, Grace Church School (for their community book club), and Talented Unlimited High School, all here in New York City. I really love visiting classrooms and talking with students about writing, what it's like to publish a book, and also about grief, which is the topic of my first book. I have put a form on my website for teachers to request a visit (both in-person and virtual) so, educator peeps, I’d love to hear from you, and if you know any educators who might be interested in having an author come to their classroom, please spread the word.

Lastly, I wanted to share something we can do to help the people in Gaza communicate with their families and continue to show the world what’s happening there. The writer and founder of the group Connecting Humanity, Mirna El Helbawi, has created the eSims for Gaza campaign which distributes donated eSims to people in Palestine through volunteers. (“An eSIM is an industry-standard digital SIM that allows you to activate a cellular plan from your carrier without having to use a physical SIM.” via Apple) I did this and it was really easy. For $14.00, you can help someone in Gaza keep their phone connected for 30 days. More details in this article: Palestinians are using donated eSIM cards to stay in touch with the outside world - by Kevin Collier and Rima Abdelkader, NBC, and if you haven’t yet emailed your reps in support of a ceasefire today, you can do it now in 10 seconds, using this tool.

I hope you are well and taking good care, thanks so much for reading,

Shannon