dulemba: Child Lit Symposium

Yes, we leave for the states on Monday, but Thursday, I headed to Newcastle with my friends from the University of Glasgow for a Children's Literature Colloquium. Five academics from the top Children's Lit programs in the UK (UoG, Cambridge, Newcastle, and Roehampton) all headed for Newcastle University and Seven Stories to talk about our passion. It was a wonderful chance to spend some quality time with my fellow PhD friends before I leave for the US. I rode down on the train with Jennifer Farrar.

We went straigth to Newcastle Uni where we caught up with Susanna, Annie and Herdiana,

and ate a quick lunch enjoying the beautiful Newcastle campus.

Then we headed inside for the Colloquium to begin. It kicked off with Kim Reynolds giving a talk that caught all of our attention, "'Sod off, you bastards.' How Robert Westall changed Children's Literature."

Then we broke into panels of speakers with four assigned topics. Mine was the first group and we talked about Textuality. Here I am with Victoria, Carrie, and Andy, who organized the event. (Many thanks!)

Herdiana was in the group that talked about Diversity - she gave a great talk about children's literature in Indonesia.

That evening we all headed to The Botanist restaurant, located under a glass dome with a giant tree fort in the middle.

The UoG five were staying in an AirBnB together - slumber party! We even told ghost stories!
The next day was my birthday and the girls put on a celebratory breakfast for me - so sweet!!!