NCLA 59th Biennial Conference, Speakers
The NCLA Conference Planning Committee is proud to announce the following speakers at the general sessions.
First General Session, Wednesday, October 5: Rebecca Renard is an educator, youth development specialist, community knowledge management professional, and self-proclaimed “teen whisperer”--with an expertise in youth program development and building strategic partnerships. Before entering the world of public libraries, she taught language arts and social studies to middle schoolers in San Francisco, led documentary production courses for high schoolers in New York City, and directed a media arts program for “disconnected” young adults in DC. She brings those diverse skills to bear in her current role as the coordinator of the DC Public Library’s Teens of Distinction Employment Program, where for the past four year she's helped develop young library (and, indeed, community) leaders, and heads up new teen media initiatives.
She works towards creating a world where all young people have the opportunities, skills, and resources to grow and SHINE. When she’s not “moving and shaking” [link to LJ article--http://www.libraryjournal.com/csp/cms/sites/LJ/LJInPrint/MoversAndShakers/profiles2011/moversandshakersRenard.csp] within the walls of DC Public Library, Rebecca is active in DC’s youth non-profit, arts, and education community, ever on the lookout for ways to connect resources, build networks, and talk crazy ideas into existence.
Rebecca has a Master's degree in multimedia production and critical pedagogy from New York University, and is currently (and desperately) finishing her MLIS from Catholic University. She is a globe-trekker, dance floor lighter-upper, and avid hugger. And though she's a native Washingtonian, for the record she'd like to note that she is one generation removed from Caswell County, North Carolina, from whence her grandfather hailed. So this October, she'll be happily coming 'home' to the North Carolina Libraries Association family.
Third General Session, Friday, October 7: Scott Huler was born in 1959 in Cleveland and raised in that city's eastern suburbs. He graduated from Washington University in 1981; he was made a member of Phi Beta Kappa because of the breadth of his studies, and that breadth has been a signature of his writing work. He has written on everything from the death penalty to bikini waxing, from NASCAR racing to the stealth bomber, for such newspapers as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Los Angeles Times and such magazines as Backpacker, Fortune, and Child. His award-winning radio work has been heard on "All Things Considered" and "Day to Day" on National Public Radio and on "Marketplace" and "Splendid Table" on American Public Media. He has been a staff writer for the Philadelphia Daily News and the Raleigh News & Observer and a staff reporter and producer for Nashville Public Radio. He was the founding and managing editor of the Nashville City Paper. He has taught at such colleges as Berry College and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and sometimes serves as guest host on "The State of Things" on WUNC-FM.
On the Grid is his sixth book; his work has also been included in such compilations as Appalachian Adventure and in such anthologies as Literary Trails of the North Carolina Piedmont, The Appalachian Trail Reader and Speed: Stories of Survival from Behind the Wheel.
For 2011 Scott is proud to have been chosen Piedmont Laureate, representing the literary arts on behalf of the counties of Alamance, Durham, Johnston, Orange, and Wake. Through readings, workshops, presentations, and his work as a writer of nonfiction he will help promote the appreciation of literary excellence in the Piedmont region.
He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, with his wife, the writer June Spence, and their two sons.
For further information, see http://www.scotthuler.com/index.cgi.
