A highly regarded author of children's books and adult poetry, Gary Soto, will be the featured speaker at the Virginia Westerberg Children's Literature Conference at the University of Colorado at Boulder on Nov. 8.
¶¶ÒõÂÃÐÐÉä 500 people are expected to attend the 28th annual event, including teachers, librarians, writers, artists, storytellers, parents and others.
Soto, of Berkeley, Calif., is the author of several books for children, including "The Tortilla Factory," "Baseball in April, "Off and Running," "Pool Party" and "Neighborhood Odes."
He also is the author of eight poetry collections for adults, most notably "New and Selected Poems," a 1995 finalist for both the Los Angeles Times Book Award and the National Book Award.
Other presentations will be given by Colorado authors and illustrators Jillian Lund, Sue Lockwood Summers, Judy Cozzens and Suzanne Kita, and storytellers Brad Bowles and Ed Low.
Winners of the Colorado Language Arts Society 1996-97 Elementary Story Telling Contest will perform at 11:30 a.m. The conference is sponsored by the Colorado Language Arts Society and the ¶¶ÒõÂÃÐÐÉä-Boulder School of Education.
The deadline to register is Oct. 31. Registrants should send their names and checks to the Children's Literature Conference, School of Education, Campus Box 249, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0249.
Cost for the full day including lunch is $25. The fee for students is $20. The cost to attend only the 1 p.m. luncheon and keynote speech by Gary Soto is $15. Sign-in begins at 8:15 a.m. and sessions will run from 9:15 a.m. until about 3 p.m. in the University Memorial Center. The UMC is at Broadway and East Euclid Avenue on the ¶¶ÒõÂÃÐÐÉä-Boulder campus.
For more information call Jan Buswell of Metropolitan State College at (303) 556-2996 or Beth Cushman at ¶¶ÒõÂÃÐÐÉä-Boulder at (303) 492-1954.