Attack of the Black Rectangles: A Conversation on Censorship with Amy Sarig King and Jane Yolen

Please join LILRC for a moderated conversation with award-winning authors Amy Sarig King (Attack of the Black Rectangles) and Jane Yolen (The Devil’s Arithmetic) on the topics of censorship in children’s and young adult literature. 

Amy Sarig King has been called “One of the best Y.A. writers working today” by the New York Times Book Review. As A.S. King, she is the author of highly-acclaimed novels including 2021's SW/TCH, 2020 Michael L. Printz Award winner and LA Times Book Prize finalist DIG, 2016's Still Life with Tornado, 2015’s surrealist I Crawl Through It, Glory O'Brien's History of the Future, Reality Boy, the 2012 Los Angeles Times Book Prize winner Ask the Passengers, Everybody Sees the Ants, 2011 Michael L. Printz Honor Book Please Ignore Vera Dietz among others. She also writes Middle Grade fiction as Amy Sarig King, including Attack of the Black Rectangles. In 2022, King received the Margaret A. Edwards Award for her significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature.

She is a faculty member of the Writing for Children and Young Adults MFA program at Vermont College of Fine Arts and spends many months of the year traveling the country speaking to high school and university students, educators, and humans who care about the mental health of young people. After a decade living self-sufficiently and teaching literacy to adults in Ireland, she now lives in Pennsylvania.

Jane Yolen’s books and stories and poems have won the Caldecott Medal, two Nebula Awards, two Christopher Medals, three World Fantasy Awards, three Mythopoeic Fantasy Awards, two Golden Kite Awards, the Jewish Book Award and the Massachusetts Center for the Book award. She has also won the World Fantasy Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award, the Science Fiction Writers of America’s Grand Master Award, and the Science Fiction Poetry Associations Grand Master Award (the three together she calls the Trifecta). Plus she has won both the Association of Jewish Libraries Award and the Catholic Libraries Medal. Also the DuGrummond Medal and the Kerlan Award, and the Ann Izard story-telling award at least three times. Six colleges and universities have given her honorary doctorates for her body of work, so–she jokingly says–you could call her Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Yolen though she can’t set a leg. However, she does warn about winning too many awards as one of them set her good coat on fire. If you meet her, you can ask about that!

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Code of Conduct

For questions, please email Eliscia Cirrone, ecirrone@lilrc.org.

Professional Development Hours: 1 (.1 CEUs)

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