THANKS TO ALL WHO ATTENDED SATURDAY! WE WILL SOON POST PICTURES FROM THE EVENT...AND MAKE PLANS TO JOIN US NEXT YEAR...SAME TIME, SAME PLACE MAY 10, 2014!

Our Keynote Speaker

Judy Blume is one of the country’s most beloved and widely read authors and one of our most vigorous activists against censorship. Her twenty-five books for young readers include Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret; Superfudge; Tiger Eyes (soon to be a motion picture); and the teen classic, Forever. Adults know her for her best-selling novels Summer Sisters; Smart Women; and Wifey. Together, her books have sold more than eighty million copies, in thirty-one languages, and have inspired countless readers, some of whom have grown up to write their own books. Judy received a B.S. in education from New York University in 1961. In 1996 the American Library Association honored her with the Margaret A. Edwards Award for Lifetime Achievement. She is the recipient of the Library of Congress Living Legend Award, the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, and most recently, the McGovern Award from the Smithsonian Associates. But she says what she values most are the thousands of letters, emails, and tweets she receives each year from readers of all ages who share their feelings and concerns with her. Judy serves on the boards of the National Coalition Against Censorship; the Key West Literary Seminar; the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators; and the Authors Guild, currently as Vice President. Though she was born and raised in New Jersey, as a young girl Judy lived in Miami Beach for two school years, where she attended Central Beach Elementary School (now Feinberg Fisher School). Her most autobiographical book, Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself, was based on those years. For the past eighteen years Judy and her husband, George Cooper, have lived in Key West, which reminds Judy of her years in Miami Beach. She even rides the same kind of bicycle around town. On some days she feels ten years old again. Judy was diagnosed with breast cancer in June, 2012. She had a mastectomy, reconstruction, and is glad to be able to participate in the Day of Caring.