At the Newbery awards, I failed to meet Sherman Alexie, whose book I hugely love, even though he came up and chatted with the person with whom I was in conversation.

But otherwise, it was not a weekend of failure at all!  

I gave a speech. I wore an outfit. I got a prize and a beautiful red pin from the Printz commitee. I met Melina Marchetta, whom I have long admired, and the wonderful Margo Lanagan. MT Anderson was super dapper and mentioned me in his speech! 

His talk was an impassioned argument in favor of fearless intellectual content in books for teenagers. He pointed out how voracious teens are in wanting to know about the stuff they want to know about -- and how if we assume they are  afraid of challenging content, we will end up raising a nation of people ill-equipped to handle difficult ideas. Which would obviously suck.

Well. He said it better than that. But that was part of his point. Huzzah for complexity! 

Now I am home. Feeling very lucky.

E