hay Aubry This summer I am doing two types of wonderful Skype conferences with libraries around the country. The first is my traditional type of conference in which I tell about the background of my ALA award-winning novels (Black and White, Rikers High, The Final Four, etc.), discuss the writing process, answer questions about my work (I was a non-reader in high school), ask the students questions about themselves, and encourage students/adults in their own writing. The second type of conference is a creative writing one in which I actually read a single page of work by each writer beforehand (be it a novel, short story, poem, play or song lyrics) and give them positive feedback during the actual conference, as well as realistic game-plan on how to one day get their work published. This type of conference can be held with either creative writing classes or students/adults with an interest in writing that teachers or an LMS pulls together. Both types of conferences can last anywhere between 60-75 minutes. I keep the honorarium for either at a very low $300. --Paul Volponi Below is some feedback from LMSs with whom I've done Skype conferences--- I have not seen that class as engaged all year! It was also a great way to introduce your books to these students who then recommend them to others. –CS. I just wanted to follow up on the wonderful Skype discussion from yesterday. The students were really intrigued and had fun! Thank you for making this experience something they will remember. I absolutely loved that you asked each student what was going well in their lives right now before getting them into discussion. They were all very shy but they haven't stopped talking about it since! –LD I am pleased that my new YA novel, Game Seven, about a young Cuban baseball player who defects to the US, is touching so many readers' lives and is on the NYC Public Library's Summer Reading List. You can read excerpts from all of my YA novels and get author's notes on their origins at paulvolponibooks.com Award-winning author Paul Volponi is the recipient of 11 American Library Association Honors.