On this edition of StudioTulsa, we are pleased to welcome Laurie Halse Anderson to our show. She's written many books of fiction and nonfiction over the years, and she's the winner of the 2017 Zarrow Award for Young Readers' Literature. She will been given this award at a special ceremony happening on Friday the 5th at the TCCL's Hardesty Regional Library, on East 93rd Street. (This event -- known as The Zarrow Award and Young People's Creative Writing Contest Awards Presentation -- is free to everyone and begins at 7pm.) Anderson is widely celebrated for writing YA novels that deal honestly and perceptively with themes of a more mature nature, such as anorexia, addiction, slavery, and racism. "Speak," her first YA adult novel, was published in 1999; it won the Edgar Allen Poe Award and The Los Angeles Times Book Prize (and was made into a feature film in 2005). "Chains," a book in Anderson's trilogy concerning the American Revolution, was awarded the 2009 Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction -- and was also chosen as a 2008 National Book Award finalist. "Forge" and "Ashes" complete the so-called Seeds of America Trilogy. Also, Anderson's novel "Wintergirls" was selected as an American Library Association Best Books for Young Adults. She joins us by phone to discuss these and other works.
A Chat with Laurie Halse Anderson, Winner of the 2017 Anne V. Zarrow Award
