ASE at the Children's Literature Association Conference

ASE connections spring up everywhere. This June I presented a paper at the Children's Literature Association Annual Conference at Christopher Newport University, VA. The conference theme was 'Anniversaries, Histories, and Colonialisms' to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the founding of nearby Jamestown, and I spoke on the humanist impulse in English time-travel novels for young people. Apart from a technical hitch in actually making it to the venue on time (a curse on Newark Liberty Airport) the conference was well worth the trip, and I heard some fascinating speakers present on topics as wide-ranging as American Christian responses to Harry Potter, Maori space and European time, picturebook treatments of 9/11, and multicultural feminist approaches to prize-winning children's literature.

Christopher Newport University has been sending students to ASE recently, and so I enjoyed catching up with Professor Kara Keeling, who planned the conference and who I have met with before to talk ASE business. I didn't expect to meet a former ASE student amongst the delegates, but while waiting for my taxi back to the airport I ran into Michael Heywood, ASE alum from the class of Fall 1990. He is now teaching at Berklee College of Music and gave a paper (which I unfortunately missed) on Indian nonsense verse.