ALR on Tour: Virginia Festival of The Book

I'm delighted to announce that I will be taking part in this year's Virginia Festival of The Book! The five-day event in Charlottesville starts March 17th and features tons of opportunities to hear from a wide range of authors from all over the state of Virginia. I will be doing a talk called "Visual Literacy" about my Skull-A-Day project/book alongside steampunk author Nick Valentino at 8pm on Wednesday, March 17th at Random Row books. The event is Free and should be a lot of fun. Please stop by and say hi if you're in the area. More details can be found HERE.

Visual Literacy
at the Virginia Festival of The Book
March 17th @ 8pm
Random Row Books
315 West Main Street
Charlottesville, VA
434.326.5501
Free!


image shown: Skullphabet #1

ALR on Tour: Skulls at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

I was recently asked to present a talk and workshop as part of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts' annual Teen Symposium. The program features several guest artists who present to 100+ students and art teachers from across Virginia. I talked about my Skull-A-Day project and then led the participants in a mini-project in which they picked an image and then made as many versions of it they could in a short period of time using a variety of materials. The results were really terrific, especially when people realized they could move beyond fixed, traditional forms. More images can be seen on my Flickr stream HERE.

New York Public Library honors SKULLS

My book SKULLS has been given the great honor of inclusion in the New York Public Library's Stuff for the Teen Age 2009. This is the 80th year of this list of the best books, music, movies and video games for teens. Items were chosen by working with a teen advisory staff who rated all of the items for consideration. Below is a short video of some of the responses to SKULLS...



As part of their teen related programming I've been asked to come speak to both librarians and teenagers in NYC about the book and project in the coming year.

Librarians Like Skulls

I am extremely honored to find out that my book SKULLS has been chosen as one of the Top Ten 2009 Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers by the YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association).

The Quick Picks list, presented annually at the American Library Association Midwinter Meeting suggests books that teens, ages 12-18, will pick up on their own and read for pleasure; it is geared to the teenager who, for whatever reason, does not like to read.

’ÄúThe list is overflowing with diverse titles; we have everything from stunning portraits, tattoo revelations to fallen stars and skulls made of soap suds,’Äù said Joy Millam, committee chair. ’ÄúThis list is a true reflection of the teens we serve. Our goal was to put out a list that gives every reluctant reader a book to connect with personally.’Äù