February 4, 2011
Young Adult Author Series continues with Deborah Wiles
SEARCY, Ark. — The 2010-11 Harding University Young Adult Author Series will continue Feb. 18-19, 2011, with award-winning young adult author Deborah Wiles.
Her work has received the Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award, the PEN/Phyllis Reynolds Naylor Working Writer Fellowship, and the E.B. White Read-Aloud Award, with her most notable book, Each Little Bird That Sings, honored as a 2005 National Book Award Finalist.
Wiles’ young adult books draw from her childhood summers in America’s South among her close-knit extended family, addressing the difficulties that come with growing up such as distant friends, troublesome siblings and family deaths.
Wiles has written four middle-grade novels, three of which are part of her “Aurora County Series” set in the South, and two picture books, including winner of the Ezra Jack Keats/New York Public Library award for best new picture book writer of the year in 2002, Freedom Summer, a book following the interracial friendship of two fictional boys after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is passed.
Her most recently published book, Countdown, was published in May 2010 as the first book of her new series, “The Sixties Trilogy: Three Novels of the 1960s for Young Readers.” The book has already been recognized as a Best Book of 2010 by Publisher’s Weekly.
Wiles currently lives in Atlanta and teaches in the Master of Fine Arts program in writing for children at Vermont College.
Sponsored by Harding’s Graduate Reading Programs, the Young Adult Author series gives teachers and students an opportunity to hear firsthand from accomplished writers. The informative workshops also help teachers connect with authors who are part of their classroom curriculum.
The series is presenting four weekend conferences during the 2010-11 school year. Each conference includes three discussion sessions and book signings. The cost is $125 for one event, $100 each for two events, and $75 each for three or four events. Registration fees include Friday night dinner with the author, continental breakfast on Saturday and author information packets. If students attend any three of the conferences, they may receive three hours of graduate level credit from Harding for $375.
The current series will conclude with Sarah Weeks, who has written more than 50 picture books and novels including her best seller, So B. It, April 1-2, 2011.
For more information, please contact the Harding Graduate Reading Programs at 501-279-5107 or e-mailYAAS.harding@gmail.com. Space is limited, and spots are available on a first-come, first-served basis.