Five amazing contemporary Young Adult authors visited South High for an hour in the afternoon, on November 6, 2012. Two teachers brought their classes (one of them was me) and students who loved books and reading showed up to listen and ask questions of the author panel.
All of the authors have new books which have recently been released. Janet
Gurtler wrote Who I Kissed.When Janet writes she does not create a outline but focuses on strong character development.
Miranda Kenneally wrote Catching Jordan and Stealing Parker. Miranda has 2 others books releasing soon and one is non-fiction compilation by a variety of teen authors called Dear Teen Me. Miranda lives in D.C. and
writes stories with strong female characters. 
Lisa and Laura Roecker are sisters and a strong writing team. Their book is called Lies that Bind, it is the sequel to The Liar Society. They write every other chapter in order, so one sister writes a chapter and emails it to 
the other. Then she writes the next chapter and so on. When asked their favorite author, these two moms said they love Sarah Dressen.
Goeff Herbach is a local YA writer and his son just happens to be in my world history class, which is so cool. Geoff wrote Stupid Fast and Nothing Special and the 3rd book in the series is coming out in 2013. Geoff is a college teacher who noticed that young men don't read as much as young women and so his books 
are geared toward teenage boys.The audience of students asked great questions of these YA authors and it was full of stimulating conversation. Thanks for spending the afternoon at South High!
