Gregory Holch

I have recently finished jury duty, which lasted for three months and three days from October 9, 2012 to January 11, 2013, and a lot has happened in that time period. Perhaps the biggest news was Hurricane Sandy, which hit New York City on Monday, October 29.

Water damage in a power station on 14th street on the east side of New York caused a blackout below 39th street which lasted for about five days. Wind damage was not too bad, but I did observe a number of signs which had blown off of buildings.

An awning blew off a McDonald's restaurant near the corner of Varrick and Houston Streets. I had always thought these awnings were made of sheet metal, but I was able to touch it and see that it was actually made of vinyl.

On a magical evening this past week, the Post Road School in White Plains, New York hosted its 13th children's book "author/illustrator evening." The event happens only once every two years, and I was honored to participate as the author of The Things With Wings.

The event is organized by Lori Mollo and Anthony Russo, and more than 30 children's book authors and illustrators attended, including Gail Carson Levine, Vicki Cobb, Dan Greenburg, and Stephanie Calmenson. I took the train up from Grand Central Station with Melanie Hope Greenberg, Laurie Calkhoven, and Jan Carr.

In the school gym, the students had created posters based on the authors' books. Thank you to Mrs. Carroll's students for their wonderful poster based on

This evening I attended the book release party for Mackenzie Reide's book, The Adventurers. The event took place in the back room of Stone Creek at 140 East 27th Street, and was hosted by the NY SciFi & Fantasy Meetup Group and co-hosted by The Group That Shall Not Be Named, the NYC Harry Potter Meetup Group.

In addition to being an author, Mackenzie is an aerospace engineer and the co-editor of the SCBWI Metro NY Chapter Newsletter.

Members of SCBWI were in attendance, and I ran into Melanie Hope Greenberg and Patricia Keeler and her husband.

The cover illustrator is Jennifer Drucker. Jennifer also owns a cake making company called Jenny’s Cakes With Character, and she made a cake which looked

Great news for fans of the animated films of Hayao Miyazaki and his colleagues at Studio Ghibli. The people who bring you the New York International Children's Film Festival have arranged a retrospective of all 15 films produced by Studio Ghibli from 1984 to 2009.

The films will be shown from December 16 to January 12 at the IFC Center in New York City (323 Avenue of the Americas at West 3rd Street) with multiple showings of each one. Films include such well-known titles as Ponyo, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, Castle in the Sky, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Porco Rosso, and Howl's Moving Castle.

Additional films that you may not have seen include Whisper of the Heart, Only Yesterday, The Cat Returns, Pom Poko, My Neighbors the Yamadas, and

I attended the Fourth Annual Biblioball last Saturday evening. It took place at the Bell House in Brooklyn. I arrived late-ish, and although it was advertised as lasting from 8pm - 3am, the Jay Vons finished playing by 1:00. If you are thinking of going next year, I would recommend arriving early. The party did continue after the bands stopped. People were still dancing to a dj in the front room as I left.

The theme was "biblio noir", and as I stepped into the light to get my picture taken by Jeremy Balderson in front of Gilbert Ford’s one-of-a-kind backdrop, I intinctively turned up the collar of my dinner jacket to keep out the chill Brooklyn fog.

The music was excellent, but LOUD. A sign at the coat check window advertised "Ear Plugs $1.00". However, I had

Biblioball 2011: Biblio Noir
The Bell House
Brooklyn, NY

The Desk Set has just announced that tickets have gone on sale for the 4th annual Biblioball.

"Every winter the librarians of New York City let down their hair, dust off their dancing shoes and party with the literati. Archivists, authors, readers and nerds of all kinds gather to enjoy live music, trapeze, a bit of film and some of the city's finest DJs at Brooklyn's most wildly bookish event: the Desk Set's Biblioball."

Well-known young adult and children's book author William Sleator died on August 3, 2011. This afternoon, I attended a memorial in his honor held in the auditorium of the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City.

His longtime editor, Ann Durell McCory, spoke, as did Elizabeth Law, Susan Van Metre, and Stephen Weiner. His brothers Tycho and Danny gave emotional readings from some of his books and from letters written by friends and fans. Tiedan Yao played some of William Sleator's favorite pieces by Ravel and Debussy on the piano.

William Sleator wrote 26 novels, four books for younger readers, short stories, and a collection of autobiographical stories called Oddballs. I re-read Oddballs last night, and it's an excellent

The annual meeting of the Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO) was this afternoon from 2:00-5:00 p.m. Norman J. Jacknis (Director of Cisco IBSG Public Sector and METRO Board President) announced that Jason Kucsma would be the new METRO Director.

Suzi Oppenheimer (New York State 37th Senatorial District) and Rachel Sterne (Chief Digital Officer, New York City) received awards and gave brief talks. Maureen Sullivan (President-Elect of the American Library Association) gave the keynote address. (Hey, Seth Godin, she knows who you are! She mentioned your writing on user experience in libraries.)

Late this afternoon, I attended a party on the third floor of NYU’s Bobst Library, just outside of the Fales Collection. The occasion was the retirement of Deirdre S. Stam from her position as a professor at the Palmer School of Library and Information Science (part of Long Island University), where she directed the program in Rare Books and Special Collections. I had the good luck to take one of her last presentations of “LIS 713: Rare Book and Special Collections Librarianship”.

Dr. Stam will be succeeded as Director of the Rare Books program at Palmer by J. Fernando Peña, who comes to Palmer from the Grolier Club in New York.

I found the following excerpt from an article by Professor Stam, and I thought it fit the moment: Read More