Last year I attended the Greater Rochester Teen Book Festival at Nazareth College and I got to hear some great YA authors such as Laurie Halse Anderson and A.S. King speak about their books and the writing process. One I noticed that many of these authors discussed was about being bullied when they were in school and how that influenced their writing. Many YA authors deal with bullying in their books and they want their readers to be aware that it goes on and how to stop it. Therefore I think it would be a great idea as a bullying awareness/prevention event to have YA authors who deal with bullying in their books and have experienced it themselves to come and give talks and workshops.
I envision this a day-long event. I would ask for student volunteers to help set up in the library (where we would host the event) as well as create posters and videos to advertise the event. We would invite five or six YA authors (students would have input on who they think we should invite) and we would host them for a day of bullying awareness. I would like to have the authors start off with a panel in which they talk about their bullying experiences, how it has influenced their writing, and what they seek to accomplish by writing about the issue of bullying. After the students hear them talk, there would then be time for the students to ask questions. The rest of the day would be mini workshops put on by each of the authors, say about 30 minutes – an hour each and the students would be broken up into groups and would be able to attend each workshop. The workshops would include topics such as: “Writing for Bullying Awareness” and “Cyberbullying: What Can We Do to Stop It?” among other topics.
At the end of the day, the students in their groups could brainstorm ideas about what to do if they or someone they know is being bullied and what they plan to do to put a stop to it. What drew me to this idea was that young adults look up to their favorite authors and I think it would be great for them to hear from these role models how bullying has affected them, how it influenced their writing, and how they were able to come through their experience and become successful adults.
erinbennettlib 
I love the idea of addressing this issue through literature connections. I think students would be highly motivated to meet and learn from some of their favorite YA authors, and might be more open to learning about bullying prevention from real-life examples. What a great idea!
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I too like the fact you connected the young adult authors. I did not think about it when I was putting my event together, but so frequently the books the girls in ninth grade have a fascination in have a conflicted theme of some sort of bullying. Nice job.
I second Milly’s opinion about your idea, Erin. This is an exciting idea for a day-long event. It would also be terrific if one of the authors was from the school’s own region or even state! I love the brainstorming session at the end of the day when students could generate their own ideas based on what they had learned throughout the day. Maybe even create a mindmap of the ideas to display on the school library site.