I have popped home from my book tour to present and be a sponsor of the Illinois Library Association Annual Conference. 

RA for All will take a pause while I give my full attention to my state library conference and colleagues.

Please click here for the PDF of the conference program book. I am very proud that RA for ALL is a silver sponsor. You are welcome in advance for your coffee.

I will recap the entire conference on Friday in one post including the links to all of the presentation I was a part of and reports on what I saw and did, but I did want to alert everyone to this presentation I am a part of on Tuesday:

1:30 – 2:30 p.m.

The Call is Coming From Inside the House:

How White Librarianship Protects Itself

and Hinders Belonging

Speakers: Julie Jurgens, Lake Bluff Public Library; Alea Perez,

Roselle Public Library District; Becky Spratford, RA for All

Room 21

Slides are clear and strong and I will have them here for everyone to see with or without being a registered attendee on Friday. I hope the three of us will continue to give this program far and wide. I am very proud to be a part of this. A huge thank you to Alea for the idea and to Alea and Julie for being amazing and collaborative partners. The pre-planning on this was some of the best conference program planning I have ever been a part of. I am so proud to be on stage with these women. 

We know we are putting ourselves out there for this presentation. We know it will make some people mad. But, we are unwilling to stay silent. We have already put ourselves out there in the past. We have already felt the heat. We are done placating people. We are ready to force people to understand, learn, and help us in the fight to find real belonging, not just play lip service to it.

[Big shout out to the conference planning committee for accepting this program knowing full well who we are and how we present.]

But don't fear (pun intended), I am not abandoning you this week while I am off conferencing. Head on over to the Horror blog because I have 6 days of awesome content.

Monday through Saturday, 31 Days of Horror has a mini series within my established Why I Love Horror series. This week I am featuring Creature Publishing and it began today. Creature is a feminist horror publishing house on the rise-- and that "on the rise" statement is not an exaggeration. One of their titles made the October LibraryReads list as the Board Fiction pick-- Vampires at Sea by Lindsay Merbaum!

I will be featuring Merbaum tomorrow with her Why I Love Horror Essay, but today I began the 6 day series with Founder and Publisher, Amanda Manns, on why she loves horror and why she created Creature. 

This post not only introduces you to the press and its founder, but she also writes a little bit about each author who will be a part of this 6 days event. AND, click through because Manns is gong to offer a 5 book prize pack to 1 library worker this week. Details on how to enter are in the post.

Goodbye here until Friday. See some of you in person in Rosemont, IL. 

And head on over to RA for All Horror for some great content in the meantime.