The BEST part was meeting all the children's lit bloggers who have become my cyber friends and who are now my REAL friends! I felt like I knew them all before I even met them, but to give them all a real life hug was great.
Mary Lee Hahn took such good care of me - attending to my every need; not falling asleep while sitting through both my programs; being patient with my neurotic worry over technical equipment; being my taxi service; and laughing at at least one of my redneck jokes.
All of the committee members were so friendly and efficient - Franki Sibberson, Bill Prosser, Laura Douce (the other taxi service), Patty Whose-Husband-Is-a-Pilot, Karen Terlecky (thank you so much, Karen, for coming by to meet me!), Megan Germano (my cyber-bud!) and all the others. (Forgive me for leaving out so many!!!!! I left my handout with all the committee members in my hotel room. Duh!)
I got to spend time with authors. What's more fun than that? It was great to hang with Grace Lin. We had fun talking shop and sharing stories - and I'm sure I'll never forget seeing that little bitty girl eat the world's largest cream puff. (Well, okay, she only ate half of the world's largest cream puff, but still....). I also got to see an ARC of Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, which looks fabulous.
I enjoyed meeting newly published author, Amjed Qamar, whose YA book, Beneath My Mother's Feet has been receiving lots of notice.
I also had a blast with Pat Johnson, author of One Child at a Time: Making the Most of Your Time with Struggling Readers.
(l to r) Bill Prosser (Literate Lives), me, Mary Lee Hahn (A Year of Reading)
(l to r) Bill, me, Karen
Grace Lin and me
