I did a thing. Again! This weekend the Bay Area Book Festival will celebrate its seventh anniversary and I put together a truly kickass program for our youth readers. A huge huge shoutout to my stalwart interviewers and moderators from Cinnamongirl and to Quinn! You all rock like no one else rocks. I am in awe of what you do. A big shout out to my colleagues at the festival. Come join us and get the latest about these awesome authors. Check out the Youth Program. Register for some electrifying conversations about words and books, about business and activism, about life.
Mina Witteman – author | editor | teacher of creative writing
Posts from the “YA books” Category
Our beloved Bay Area Book Festival is back with another exciting event: Berkeley #Unbound, an all-day, free virtual mini-festival with, of course, two riveting youth programs. On Sunday, October 4 we will kick-off at 11:00 am with PROTEST + PRINT: Girls Using Words and Pictures for Activism with Girls Garage founder, builder, humanitarian design activist Emily Pilloton. Emily will be in conversation with HyeYoon Song, artist and educator and lead instructor for Girls Garage’s Protest + Print cohort, and Malaya Conui, student and visual artist. At Girls Garage in Berkeley, girls use power tools to build the world they want to see. But a different kind of world-building also takes place at Girls Garage: the kind that creates a vision for a better and…
It was a steep learning curve, this shelter-in-place pivot from an in-person book festival to an online happening. Instead of two glorious days in May in downtown Berkeley, we worked round the clock to get at least part of our line up ready for an online happening. And not just a two-day online festival. We managed to get two and a half months of just beyond incredible book programs to you via our YouTube Channel. What can I say about the children’s and YA programming? I learned new skills every single day. I am out of this world grateful to the entire technical team that made it possible for me to produce 30 just absolutely delightful and insightful programs for young audiences. This post is…
Tagged: abigail hing wen, aimee lucido, andrea zuill, anna-marie mclemore, anne nesbet, annie barrows, babfunbound, Bay Area Book Festival, Baybookfest2020, brian weisfeld, carol anderson, caroline paul, Children's Books, Cindy Derby, Cinnamongirl, colin meloy, dashka slater, deborah underwood, elizabeth rusch, Ellen Hopkins, emily pilloton, ernesto cisneros, ian lendler, innosanto nagara, jeff fleischer, Jim Averbeck, kate hosford, kate o'shaughnessy, kate schatz, keely parrack, kitty felde, mae respicio, maggie tokuda-hall, meg fleming, michael genhart, middle grade, miriam klein stahl, misa sugiura, nelly buchet, nikki shannon smith, paola zakimi, Picture Books, Priscilla Burris, rahul kanakia, randy ribay, rebecca hanover, romina garber, scott ostler, shawn harris, sophie blackall, steve metzger, susan szecsi, sydney hanson, yamile saied méndez, yasmeen ismail, Young Adults
Founded in 2012, the Dutch National Reading Coalition (Leescoalitie) promotes and stimulates reading in schools in the Netherlands. Every two years, the Reading Coalition publishes an anthology with excerpts from well-known Dutch children’s and young adult books. This year’s edition features an excerpt from Boreas en de vijftien vrienden (Boreas and the Fifteen Friends), the final book of the Boreas series. I am beyond stoked and proud that my book has been chosen to promote reading in schools because… well, this is a children’s writer’s dream! A national acknowledgment that top educators in the Netherlands believe that my book will stimulate students to read. I couldn’t wish for more! The free anthology, Een stuk! Meer (One Piece! More), was published in January 2020 and…
Writer friends! All friends! I am still glowing from the Bay Area Book Festival, which was a great success in no small part thanks to the brave young women of Cinnamongirl Inc. I approached Cinnamongirl Inc. to find youth moderators for my middle grade and young adult sessions. And I got them! I am so honored to have met Renée Richard and these exceptional girls. I am in awe of what they did, stepping out of their comfort zone and onto the stage, rocking at interviewing accomplished authors. And I’m in awe of how Renée guides the girls to a future brimming with opportunities and possibilities. Now, Cinnamongirl Inc. is kicking off their Write Your Story program. I am reaching out to you,…
What I am doing these days? Getting ready for an exciting, if not thrilling Bay Area Book Festival, for which I put together the children’s and young adult program. A stellar lineup of authors and illustrators, from the quirkiest picture books to the most gripping young adult novels: Cindy Derby, Andrea Tsurumi, Tania De Regil, Mylo Freeman, Rana DiOrio, Andrew Smith, Benny Lindelauf, Gennifer Choldenko, Innosanto Nagara, Laura Atkins, Steve Bramucci, Justina Ireland, Lee Wind, Cindy Pon, Zoraida Córdova and many many more. Two days of amazing panels and interviews and hilarious contests. New this year? Most of our middle grade and young adult panels moderators and interviewers are all local students! They come from Malcolm X Elementary School to Albany Middle School to…
Tagged: Albany, Andrea Tsurumi, Andrew Smith, Bay Area Book Festival, Baybookfest2019, Benny Lindelauf, Berkeley, Book Club for Kids, Children's Books, Cindy Derby, Cindy Pon, Cinnamongirl, International Congress of Youth Voices, Lee Wind, Life, Literary Death Match, middle grade, Mylo Freeman, Oakland, Podcast, Young Adult, Zoraida Córdova
Teaching creative writing, plot and revision in Hawaii.
Mina Witteman 