Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Sarah Prineas' LiveJournal:

[ << Previous 20 ]

Monday, October 6th, 2008
3:42 pm	NYC and Chicagoland Hello! It's me, the terrible, bad blogger who keeps forgetting her camera. Two more tour stops. Last week was New York/New Jersey. First I did a visit at my old elementary school, Woodside Avenue School, and it was both fun and freaky, weird and wonderful. It all looked the same and completely different. The kids were great, and the librarian so welcoming, and an old friend of the family who is a library volunteer introduced me, which was a big thrill. Then it was off to the Orchard School in Ridgewood and back to Books, Bytes, & Beyond to sign a huge pile of books, and then the car came and zipped me back to the fancy hotel in NYC. Quick note about hotel food. Generally not so good. In fact today I'm fighting off the wooglies from last night's room service dinner. But the food at the Omni in NYC was incredible!! I swear, the polenta had a whole stick of butter in it. And the caesar salad! The cheese cake was to die for. Is why I needed a run in Central Park--to work it off. Okay, enough about food. So the next day I did a marketing video for Harper, which involves me sitting still in a chair with a mike on and hot lights shining on me, and two cameras staring at me, trying to remember what book two is about when I'm prompted. Under the lights, it all goes away...! What was that book about again? Kid wizard? Magic? Oh yeah, big explosion... Before the video was lunch with my editor and her assistant at a really good Italian restaurant. Mmm, the ravioli. Right, no more food talk. We discussed what I might write next, which presents some interesting options. I'll blog more about that soon. Now I'm in Chicagoland. Two school visits today, one tomorrow with three different classes, and one the next day. Tonight is dinner (or me eating some dry crackers) with Archivist Lynne (rarelylynne, who is collecting writers' papers for her library's archives. Tuesday night at 7:00 is a signing at Anderson's Bookstore in Naperville; Wednesday night at 7:00 is a signing at The Book Stall in Winnetka (some local SCBWIians will be there; I'm looking forward to it). Cheers! (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 1st, 2008
9:23 am	The Tour If you're in the area for any of this stuff and come to a signing, please do say hello! The car to the airport will be here in 25 minutes, so I should probably go pack! ## New York/New Jersey Thursday, October 2, 2008 10:00-11:00am Presentation to Woodside Avenue School, Franklin Lakes, NJ Attendees: 125 students in the 4th and 5th grade. 11:30-12:45pm Lunch at Rocca with Bob Brown (BB&B) 1:30 - 2:30pm Presentation to Orchard School, Ridgewood, NJ Attendees: 150 students in the 3rd, 4th & 5th grades. 3:30 - 4:00pm Signing at Books, Bytes & Beyond open to the public Address: 197 Rock Road Glen Rock, NJ 07452 Friday, October 3, 2008 11:00am Lunch with Editor Toni Location: Someplace with nrrrmy food 2:00pm Video taping at HarperCollins ## Chicago Monday, October 6 9:30am Presentation to Ranchview Elementary School, Naperville Audience: 105 students in the 4th grade Break 1:00pm Presentation to Mill Street Elementary School, Naperville Audience: 141 students in the 5th grade Tuesday, October 7, 2008 9:30 – 10:20am Presentation #1 to Orland Junior High, Orland Park Audience: 195 students in the 6th grade 11:15 – 12:05pm Presentation #2 to Orland Junior High Audience: 170 students in the 7th grade 1:30 – 2:30pm Presentation #3 to Orland Junior High Audience: 200 students in the 8th grade BREAK 7:00pm Event at Anderson’s Bookshop Address: 123 West Jefferson Naperville, IL http://www.andersonsbookshop.com/events.php Wednesday, October 8, 2008 Event with The Book Stall [in Winnetka, IL] – details to come. ## [Monday, October 13, educator night at the Coralville, Iowa Barnes & Noble] ## Columbus/Dayton OH Wednesday, October 15, 2008 School visit at St. Joseph Montessori School (this is where ccfinlay works!!!) Columbus, OH 4:00-7:00pm Educator Night Event at Barnes & Noble 1739 Olentangy River Road Columbus, OH 43212 Format: Meet & greet with local teachers and librarians. A local author will be there as well. Her name is Lisa Klein and she is the author of Two Girls of Gettysburg. Thursday, October 16, 2008 Dayton, OH 1:30pm Presentation to Angels Catholic School Audience: 155 students from grades 5-8 BREAK 7:00pm Event at Books & Co. Address: Books & Co (at Town & Country) 350 E. Stroop Road Dayton, OH 937-298-6540 ## Des Moines October 26-27 Teen Read Week at the Des Moines Public Library (Monday). http://www.pldminfo.org/events_news/newsreleases.html Plus signing/event at a Barnes & Noble (Sunday). http://www.barnesandnobleinc.com/stores/eventdetail.do;jsessionid=93951993B898796533C9D109FE9A73C2?store=2921&event=22745924 ## Raleigh/Charlotte, NC Monday, November 3, 2008 Raleigh, NC Event with Quail Ridge Books – event details to come. Plus school visit in Hillsborough. Tuesday, November 4, 2008 Election day, nothing on the schedule. Remind me to vote early!! Wednesday, November 5, 2008 [school event TBD] Thursday, November 6, 2008 Charlotte, NC Event with Park Road Books – event details to come. ## Maybe I should cross these off as I finish with them...and really it looks do-able listed like this. Doesn't it? (35 Comments |Comment on this)
7:29 am	The Tour Begins!! I hope you're not getting sick of this yet, because despite my travel spammage, the U.S. tour is only just beginning. Early on I vowed to blog the whole thing, with pictures, and I'm really going to do it. In a minute I'll post separately the entire tour schedule, just to have it out there. So! Today I leave for New York City. I LOVE New York, and I actually have some time in the schedule to walk around. Hopefully I'll have time to amble downtown to awesome children's bookstore Books of Wonder. Plus a lunch meeting on Friday with my editor (some big decisions coming up!), and filming a new video for marketing. Tomorrow, a school visit in Ridgewood, NJ, and then... Then!! I'm doing a school visit at the Woodside Avenue School in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, sponsored by the awesome indy bookstore Books, Bytes, & Beyond. I'll be doing a signing at BB&B (Glen Rock, NJ) on Thursday (tomorrow!) at 3:30pm. Here's the really cool thing. Cool for me, anyway--I was thrilled that my publicist was able to set this up. I went to elementary school at Woodside and haven't been back there for almost 30 years. I simply can't wait to see it again!! And meet the kid readers there, of course. Hee! Did you ever do that--go back to one of your old stomping grounds? (why "stomping"?). What was it like? I wonder what my memory has done to it, whether it'll be familiar or completely weird. (11 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 30th, 2008
6:20 pm	MBA Ingrid and me MBA. By which I mean the Midwest Booksellers Association. About 17 hours after I got home from the UK tour, I left home again for the MBA meeting in St. Paul. Above is a picture of me and Ingrid Law (and our books). We've been e-buddies since our books came out, and we finally got to meet in person. We had a lovely, chatty breakfast together, and I was thrilled to find that she's even more awesome in person. I hope our paths will cross again soon! I also got to see fellow Iowa author Anne Ylvisaker, and at last met fellow HarperCollins author jodyfeldman (click through for picture), though somehow I got swept out of the room without managing to say good-bye (sorry, Jody!). She was there to receive an award for her book, The Gollywhopper Games! We attended a speed-dating luncheon thing, two authors at each table of booksellers for 15 minutes, pitch the book, then switch to a new table. Fast talking fun! The booksellers were really enthusiastic and great. I generally try to report in about the food associated with any book event, but this time it was mediocre. Rubbery noodles, rubbery chicken. The brownies weren't too bad. Tomorrow the U.S. tour starts. Starting with NYC! Yike! (15 Comments |Comment on this)
7:08 am	The travel curse strikes again! The Magic Thief by Terry Pratchett This is truly how the book was displayed at Waterstones in Bath. At last, I'm reporting in on the Bath stop on the UK tour. Sorry it's taken so long! Nicci (publicist) and I caught the train to Bath, arriving around noon. We stopped off and signed books at the independent bookstore Topping & Co. Then I had time to wander around Bath (click through for the lone Bath picture). Dinner that night was with Topping booksellers. Beef Wellington. Nrrm. The next day was more wandering, then a school visit with a great group of kids at Hanham High. Next up was the Bath Children's Literature Festival, where I was scheduled to be on a panel with Diana Wynne Jones and Mary Hoffman. Now, you may have heard of the Diana Wynne Jones travel curse. It strikes at random, making it nigh impossible for her to traverse the ways and byways of England without incident. Well, there was an incident! My publicist, editor, and I were headed down the hill for the Guildhall, where the event was to take place, when we saw clouds of dense black smoke billowing up from buildings nearby; sirens shrieked, fire engines zoomed by. It was an explosion at a construction site. The roads were closed and traffic was at a standstill. DWJ was late, but she was a trooper--she got out of her stopped car and walked over, arriving just a couple of minutes late. Phew! The panel itself went really well. Usually I get jittery for this kind of thing, but this was sheer enjoyment. After the panel, drinks and dinner with various bookish types, including John McLay, who runs the festival. Lemon cheesecake, nrrrm. (22 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, September 25th, 2008
2:13 pm	Video by Robert I will blog Bath and the Diana Wynne Jones travel curse, and the rest of the UK tour soon, but first... It's a bit shameless, posting this on my own blog, but I absolutely adore this Magic Thief video, made by the son of an LJ friend I met in person for the first time at the Decatur Book Festival (friend, if you want to out yourself in the comments, please do!). Cheers! (19 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, September 20th, 2008
1:58 pm	You can probably guess... Quercus party ...why I love my UK publisher. This from a party in the garden behind their offices in Bloomsbury. Click through for more pictures. The woman on the right with the green scarf is my UK editor, Roisin. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
1:46 pm	UK update Hello! What a whirl! I told my UK publicist to keep me busy on this tour, and she took me at my word. It's been great! Here's what I've been up to. Wednesday Three bookstore signing stops and then afternoon tea at The Wolseley. I already blogged about that, sort-of. Thursday Monk's Walk School The car collected me from the hotel at 7:10 am and we drove to the Monk's Walk School in Knightsfield, where I did three classroom visits/presentations to terrific kid readers. They were SO well behaved; they came into the library and I didn't even know they were there until I turned around and saw them. I worried this would mean they wouldn't have much to say, but they were full of great questions. Then we zipped across to the Hyde School in Hendon, and I did a 90 minute presentation/reading/writing class for around 50 energetic kid readers (click through for pictures from this visit). I had such a good time chatting with them. Then, according to the itinerary, "Drinks in the Quercus Gardens." I have pictures from that in my next entry, and you will see why I love my UK publisher. Thursday In the morning we drove to the Hounslow Manor School in Hounslow, where I did a 50 minute book talk to the reading club there. The kids made me feel like a rock star! Some of them had already read the entire book, and all of them had read at least two chapters. THAT was exciting for me--it meant their questions were particularly interesting. In the afternoon the car took us (by "us" I mean me and my publicist, Nicci) to Loretto College, an all-girls school in St. Albans. We were a little late, so I rushed in and started up immediately, jumping straight into my first chapter reading (I swear, I have this chapter almost memorized). The girls asked great questions and we really hit it off. The funniest moment was when I showed them a picture of Conn as a cat, and they all went "awwwww". So cute. They said they liked my American accent, and asked me to say "awesome." Then we went to the independent bookstore Hatchards, where I signed another pile of books. Today I spent roaming around London--without a map. All these dire warnings about the weather. It was gorgeous!! 70 degrees and sunny. I walked across Hyde Park, shopped on Oxford Street, people-watched, and went to the Victoria & Albert Museum. Then I came back to Durrant's Hotel, ordered tea, and worked on book three revisions in a quiet sitting room downstairs. This is such a great city. So vibrant and colorful, and so full of interesting people. I'm having a fabulous time. Cheers! (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, September 18th, 2008
11:10 pm	Admit it. You had to put on some clothes in order to participate in the picture meme. (27 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 17th, 2008
10:39 pm	How about a meme where... Take a picture of yourself right now. Don't change your clothes, don’t fix your hair...just take a picture. Post that picture with NO editing. Post these instructions with your picture. I'd just gotten out of the shower... I don't usually do memes, but couldn't resist this one. I just had 10 hours of sleep, maybe I'm punchy. This one thought up by gregvaneekhout (of course). (16 Comments |Comment on this)
6:58 am	Little Shops Road Little Shops Road Hello! I am in London. It's 2:48 in the afternoon here, which means something o'clock in the morning at home in Iowa, and despite the dire warnings about jet lag I am doing just fine. Maybe it'll hit me tomorrow? I do keep spelling things wrong and retyping them...typing things wrong and respelling them... Anyway, the trip over was so easy. Big plane! Flies fast! We got in early and had to circle around London before their curfew ended, and then a stack of six planes all landed at once and a crowd of people descended on Customs. I got through okay ("What is your purpose in coming to the UK?" I was asked. "I am a writer on tour for my book!" I answered chirpily). "Car' picked me up from the airplane thingy place and drove me to hotel, which is QUAINT (means you get lost in secret passageways trying to find the elevator--excuse me, "lift") (if you click through the pictures, you can see a picture of my room key, also quaint). Then I met up with my lovely UK publicist, Nicci, and we whirled around to three different bookstores to sign books. The picture, above, is of a pedestrian street packed with tiny independent bookshops, all with different specialties. Now I'm in the hotel and have about 45 minutes until HIGH TEA with editor and her assistant. I am told high tea is quite an event, with much food in addition to tea. Did you ever have high tea? Are jeans proper attire? Wondering if I should change... Cheers! (51 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, September 15th, 2008
3:42 pm	UK! Tomorrow. Tomorrow!!! I get on a plane at the Eastern Iowa airport, and after a hopefully quick stop at O'Hare/Black Hole of the Universe Airport, fly to London! I arrive there at some ungodly early hour in the morning, and the UK tour starts right away: later that day I've got a signing and "high tea" with a couple of people from my book's UK publisher. During the weekend, I apparently have *nothing* scheduled, so I've basically got a free weekend in London (eek!). So! Travel advice! Bring it on! What should I see in London? I'm thinking the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Tower. What about food? What about jet lag? Anything I should be sure to do? What about money? Cell phone? Customs? Anything I should pick up while I'm over there? Yes, I've got my passport. Must do laundry. Must pack. What else am I forgetting?? (84 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 9th, 2008
11:46 am	Up and Down the... She's a poet and a picture book writer, an essayist and a novelist, whose first middle-grade book, Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains (oh, how I love that title), is out now from Random House. Meet the charming, the smart, the overscheduled, the delightfully snarky Laurel Snyder. I asked the questions; she responded. Me: First of all, for context, please tell us a little about Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains. Laurel: It's a funny little book, a fairy tale of sorts. It stars a snippy milkmaid named Lucy and a clumsy prince named Wynston. When Wynston's dad forces him to begin searching for a "suitable" princess, Lucy gets mad and runs away, to a strange town where the word is oddly ordered-- alphabetized and scheduled. Someone recently told me it reminds them of The Ordinary Princess. Do you know that book? Me: I do not! But Scratchy sounds simply wonderful; I can't wait to get my paws on it. Next question. I live in Iowa City, home of the Iowa Writers' Workshop; you have an MFA in poetry from said workshop. As we both know, Iowa City is a writing town, but is known for for its adult, mainstream writers. What's your take on this situation? Do you feel like your literary writing peers take your children's writing career seriously? Laurel: Oooooooh, we're doing this? OK! Basically, I loved my time in the workshop on many levels. I had good teachers, made some wonderful friends, and fell in LOVE with Iowa. But it's true that the workshop model breeds a kind of hierarchical system. Some students are "better" then others, as evidenced by funding. Some poetry is "better" than others, based on what aesthetic is in vogue at the moment. People who come from the coasts for two years are often snobby about the midwest and that drives me NUTS! And I don't really think that way of approaching books is especially useful. It made me not want to write. But so it's no surprise to me that the workshop doesn't address or consider children's literature in any way. I've never actually heard anyone there say anything bad about it, but nobody is asking me to come back and teach, now that I'm publishing children's books. They aren't inviting me to come read from my books. I'm just not of interest. My books aren't in the same sphere. I wish this wasn't so, but that's the way the workshop is. Me: Indeed. So what's your favorite bookstore in the entire world, and why? Laurel: I have a few. Prairie Lights in Iowa City, where I saw so many amazing readings in my seven Iowa years. The Red Canoe in Baltimore, which makes the very best gazpacho on earth, and has used books for little kids to grub up while adults browse the new stock (SMART!) And Little Shop of Stories, Little Shop of Stories in Decatur, Georgia, which needs neither readings nor snacks because they have the best staff on earth! Me: Oh yeah, gotta love those indies! Little Shop of Stories is the BEST. Speaking of kids...and books...tell us about writing with kids [Laurel has two little boys]. How do you manage that? Laurel: I don't. I dream and dream about kindergarten. Right now I have 8 kid-free hours a week and that just isn't enough. So I jot notes to myself during naps and in the car (where the littles are restrained!) and in a month, when I begin the next book in earnest, I'll get a sitter for afternoons. I find I need 4 solid hours to write anything really. But I will say that having kids has made me a much more industrious writer. I don't mess around anymore. When there's time set aside for writing, I write! I cannot afford writer's block when a sitter in Atlanta costs 12-15 dollars. Oh, also I refuse to cook and clean when I 'm writing. We don't starve to death, but I'm not exactly Martha Stewart. Me: You mentioned food. If you could order anything off the menu of the Hamburg Inn, what would it be? Laurel: Oh, this is going to gross you out, but I miss the "veg pat bennie" SO MUCH! That's waitress-speak for an eggs benedict made with veggie sausage instead of ham. And now that fall is coming, I have a hankering for a pumpkin pie shake. Me: I'd order the pig pat bennie, for sure. So what were you like as a kid? Laurel: I was the oldest of three, and when my parents split up I became a kind of surrogate parents to my sibs as we shuttled back and forth . So I was bossy and clucky and watchful. I have a memory of being about 8, and pulling a box of spaghetti down from a grocery store shelf with my sister on my hip. I was also obsessively a believer in magic. I used to think that if I drew a picture of a fairy, and got it RIGHT, that fairy would apear before me. So I drew a lot. I write little books about unicorns. I thught I was a witch at one point. Really really. I wasn't a princessy-girl, a girlie-girl, but I liked glitter. Me: What were your favorite books when you were a kid? What books out now would your kid self have loved? Laurel: Oh, Edward Eager and Roald Dahl and E. Nesbit stand out. But there's a long list. I named most of them in my acknowledgments page, actually. I read everything, though. I kind of lived at the library. I know my younger self would have loved Ellen Potter's Olivia Kidney. The Girl Who Could Fly, by Victoria Forrester. N.E. Bode's The Anybodies. And of course The Magic Thief! Me: Haha. What's up next, o multi-talented one? Laurel: LOL! Talented at not doing the dishes!!! I have a picture book out next month (art by a new illustrator named Jaime Zollars), Inside the Slidy Diner. It's a little spooky! Then another novel from Random House next May, Any Which Wall. With art by LeUyen Pham. Me: Good stuff! Now ask yourself any question you think I should have asked. Laurel: Would you like some cake? Laurel: Yes, always! Who doesn't want some cake? (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, September 4th, 2008
6:18 am	UK Day! MAGICTHIEF UK Today is the day that The Magic Thief officially comes out from Quercus in the UK, and [update!] after a brief google search I find that it's out in Australia/New Zealand in October (http://www.murdochbooks.com.au/magicthief.htm). That's the cover, the penultimate version without the Diana Wynne Jones blurb at the bottom. But you get the idea... Cheers! (68 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008
8:11 am	Report: Decatur Book Festival Remember how last weekend I did my book shtick after Hip Hop Harry? Well, this weekend it was the other Harry. Yay! On Thursday I flew to Georgia for the Decatur Book Festival. Upon arrival I shared a cab with the awesome Kerry Madden, mountainmist, and probably talked her ear off because I was so excited. On Friday I did two presentations for about 600 kids (see picture), and then had lunch with Cheryl Klein, Elizabeth Dulemba, and Sara Shepard. After that I headed out with my cousin for a booksigning at A Novel Experience, and they sold every last Magic Thief despite the fact that it was a football Friday night (click through to see that picture). I spent the night with relatives who live out there, and then headed back to Decatur for the Saturday festivities. On Saturday I shared a cab with SF writer John Scalzi, and talked his ear off about YA publishing and book covers. Then I did my book shtick again for around 300 people, including my 99-year-old grandma. Up after me was Scholastic editor Cheryl Klein, who did her Harry Potter quiz show while I signed books. After dinner with asatomuraki, her husband, and her two cute boys, I met Cheryl and we went to a bookseller/author cocktail party and then an "author VIP" party, where, as planned, I ran into the always fabulous Laurel Snyder. By that point I was exhausted, so made my way back to the fancy hotel and crashed. Then, home! I liked Decatur a lot and had a great time at the festival, which was well run and author friendly. In Georgia they eat biscuits with gravy for breakfast. Who knew! (22 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, August 28th, 2008
8:35 am	Skillset I've been thinking about how writing for children is different from writing for adults. Let me give you a little context. A couple of months ago, on a listserv I subscribe to, a writer of adult science fiction said--half joking--or maybe a quarter joking--that he ought to set aside the sophisticated science fiction idea he was working on, compromise his artistic integrity, and instead write a kids book because it'd be easier, and he'd make more money. Now we who write for children have heard this kind of thing before. That writing for kids is easier, or a sell-out, or somehow a lesser art. I don't have a rant in me about this because it's so obviously wrong. But I do wonder. Could science fiction writer guy simply set aside his adult novel and write a successful children's book? I kind of doubt it. They're not the same thing. But how are they not the same thing? I'm still fairly new to children's writing, so I haven't articulated this to myself yet, so I'm genuinely curious about your answers to these questions. What unique skillset do children's writers bring to their work? In what ways is writing for kids different (not better, not worse) than writing for adults? As a writer, what do you think you do differently? As a reader, what do you see children's writers doing differently? (98 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 26th, 2008
6:51 am	Tuesday Tip Post Good morning! Today I'm posting at kidlit_central, which I'm lucky enough to belong to because I live in IOWA. It's a group of children's writers in the central U.S.A., and this is our group blog. My tip is about the use of what I'm calling "physical dialogue", which probably has a better name, but I don't know what it is. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, August 24th, 2008
9:59 am	Book Event Report: Detroit Hello! I'm back from my internet break. This fall I've got loads of book-related stuff going on. It was supposed to be a "tour," but it's morphed into this sprawling conglomeration of book events taking place mostly during September and October, and I'm going to try to blog them all, hopefully with pictures. No pictures for this report because I forgot my camera, but next time. First up, the Detroit Book Festival. Oh my gosh, what a crazy day this was! I left home at 8:30 am, caught a direct flight to Detroit (a direct flight from the *Eastern Iowa Airport* is a rare and beautiful thing!). The "car" and driver drove me to Kensington Metro Park outside the city, a pretty area. I arrived a little early, so after checking in I wandered around the festival to see what it was all about. There was a climbing wall, and face painting, cotton candy, and booths for various local attractions, and a sandy beach and lake, with sailboats zooming around. Loads of people, lots of little kids. After nomming some lunch in the "performers tent," I went and sat up on the side of a hill in the shade to see the children's stage. They'd set up little plastic chairs for the kids, and the authors who read, both picture-book writers, sat in the Big Red Chair. The audiences were pretty sparse, lots of people wandering by eating ice cream. According to the schedule, I was up after "Hip Hop Harry." So I'm sitting on the hillside watching as that show started. A big crowd gathered. The music started, very loud hip hoppy stuff, and this guy comes out, low jeans, sideways baseball cap, talk-rapping about Hip Hop Harry. "He's pretty good," I thought. But no! He was only the intro guy--then, out came Hip Hop Harry. A break-dancing, rapping bear! Not a real bear, a guy in a bear costume. It was 95 degrees out there--I wouldn't wish that bear costume on my worst enemy--and he's leaping around the stage. All these "positive message" raps about washing your hands and being nice to your friends. So funny; I had a good laugh. So I went down to the tent behind the stage and got miked and joked with the next author up after me (Mark Crilley! Who did the Akiko books!) about having to follow the dancing bear (!). Harry comes off the stage and rips off the bear head. "Five minutes," he gasps, standing in front of the fan, dripping with sweat. "I just need five minutes." Poor guy! Then it was my turn! The audience just melted away--after his five minute recovery Harry was signing (or maybe paw printing?) CD's in the signing tent. A couple of people stayed while I did my author schtick, and then I went over and signed just two books. So pretty much a bust in that area. But it was *great* practice for me--I had fun up on the stage, and a couple people drifted over during my reading, including some ice-cream eating kids who seemed to get into it. I rode back to the airport with Roger Day, a super nice guy and children's performer who'd been the MC, and we had a really interesting conversation about book publishing vs the music industry. The flight home was on time. I got home exactly 12 hours after I'd left. So not exactly a big promotion for the book, but a great learning experience for me. Target put on a good show; very well organized. Still, the break-dancing, rapping bear. Tough act to follow, don't you think? (30 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 19th, 2008
9:14 pm	Out and about... Just emerging from my internet hiatus (except for email, Twitter, and Scramble, okay?) to tell you about two book events I've got coming up, just in case you're interested. This coming weekend, Saturday, August 23, I will be at the Detroit Book Festival on the Target Children's Stage from 3:45 to 4:05. The next weekend, August 29 and 30, I'll be in Georgia for the Decatur Book Festival. I think I'm doing a reader meet-and-greet on Friday and a reading performance thing on Saturday from 4:00-4:30. Right before Cheryl Klein does her Harry Potter trivia quiz. Then author party on Saturday night! At some point in there I think I'm doing a signing at a local bookstore, but I don't have details yet. If you're in the area, I'd love to see you. (9 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, August 9th, 2008
10:44 am	Just a heads up that I'm taking a little internet vacation, so I won't be commenting on friends list entries or posting for a couple of weeks. All's well, I just need to step away for a bit. I'll miss you! See you when I get back!