2006 ALAN Award Winners: Virginia Monseau and Marc Aronson

Jim Blasingame had the opportunity to visit with both 2006 ALAN Award winners by email. Here, those interviews give us insights into the philosophies and motivations behind two careers that have impacted our thinking and our profession.

Virginia Monseau

JB: You have made so very many contributions to English education (and so, also, to young people, teachers, schools, authors, librarians and parents). You were the editor of English Journal, president of ALAN, and editor or author of so many important books, such as Missing Chapters: Ten Pioneering Women in NCTE and English Education, Reading Their World, Responding to Young Adult Literature, A Curriculum of Peace: Selected Essays from English Journal, Presenting Ouida Sebestyen, and A Complete Guide to Young Adult Literature: Over 1000 Critiqu.es and Synopsis from the ALAN Review. Which of these many contributions did you find especially rewarding?

VM: Wow, that's a difficult question, Jim. Each one of those projects has been special to me in a different way, so if you'll bear with me, I'll address each one briefly. Missing Chapters was my first "big" contribution to the field, and coediting the book with my friend Jeanne Gerlach was a wonderful adventure in collaborative writing. As early members of NCTE's Women's Committee (as it was called then), we wrote together at the sentence level, meeting at each other's homes, enjoying/struggling with the pleasures and pains of writing and editing. It was truly a bonding experience. Reading Their World, another collaborative effort, gave me a chance to publish a book with my longtime colleague and friend, Gary Salvner, whose teaching I have always admired.

Presenting Ouida Sebestyen was my first solo effort, and the joy of traveling to Colorado and spending time with Ouida Sebestyen is one of my fondest memories. I interviewed her as we walked among the flora and fauna of the foothills near Boulder, and we rode there in an old Volkswagen bus driven by her son Corbin. What an experience!

Doing the research for and writing of Responding to Young Adult Literature gave me a chance to go back to my dissertation roots by returning to the ninth-grade classroom and working with students and teachers there. It also allowed me to draw on my experience with an adult YA literature book club in which I participated with some of my Youngstown State University colleagues and local high school teachers. A Curriculum of Peace was a labor of love, giving me the opportunity to share with teachers the many fine articles on teaching for peace that had been published over the years in the English Journal.

Becoming president of ALAN, of course, was a dream come true. I remember sitting in the audience at the ALAN Workshops and watching with awe as former presidents so effortlessly (it seemed) presided over the proceedings. I never dreamed then that I would some day be one of them.

Finally, I must say that becoming editor of the English Journal was the highlight of my career-the most challenging and rewarding professional experience of my life! Again, I had been so much in awe of previous £7 editors that I never could even countenance having that coveted position. I feel so fortunate to have had the opportunity. It really did change my life.

JB: If you were to characterize the evolution of ALAN over the years, how would you do so?

VM: I'm so proud of the way ALAN has evolved from a tiny organization with a mimeographed newsletter to the polished, influential force it has become today. I believe that the publication of such books as S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders and Paul Zindel's The Pigman helped ALAN to be taken seriously as a viable professional organization with important things to say about literature for young people-views that were not being voiced by any other organization at the time. And ALAN is still the only professional organization devoted exclusively to young adult literature, its teaching, and its criticism. seeing the attendance at the ALAN Workshop each year is evidence of how much teachers need and value this wonderful organization.

JB: What are your strongest memories of ALAN and the ALAN Workshop? What humorous moments and what emotionally moving moments stand out in your memory?

VM: My strongest memories involve listening to authors like Robert Cormier, Will Hobbs, and Chris Crutcher speak-especially in the early years. I remember sitting behind Will Hobbs at a workshop in Seattle, when Betty Poe was president, and not knowing who he was until he got up and took the stage to speak. I immediately went out and bought two of his books-and I've been buying them ever since. And Bob Cormier-the first time he autographed a book for me, I kept reading the inscription over and over on the plane ride home. Little did I know then that he would later become a valued friend.

JB: When you think of young adult literature, where it has been and where it is now, what work do you see as needed for the future? What are your hopes for the genre and/or for ALAN?