Who knew?

(Note: I confess that I wrote this blog post back in November when I was doing school visits in Iowa City. I never got around to posting it....so since I have nothing else to report...here it is. That's what we call "a slow news day." Ha!)

Until my trip to Iowa, I had never been to the Midwest at all.

It was interesting to see things I'd never seen before.

Like hedge apples!

These were all over the ground in the yard of the B&B I stayed at.

They are big - about the size of a grapefruit.

They come from a big beautful tree called a sage orange.
They supposedly keep spiders away.
Who knew?

Book Banners

Check out these cool book banners that were in a school library in Iowa City.

Iowa City Part 8

I had the pleasure of meeting Iowa author Dori Butler.

Dori (left) and me

And a group of Iowa authors came by to see my presentation. I finally got to meet Jill Esbaum, my online buddy. I feel like I've known her forever but we finally met for the first time.

(l to r) authors Jill Esbaum, me, Dori Butler, Wendy Henrichs, Sarah Prineas


And then we went to dinner and talked about books and writing and school visits and all that stuff. So much fun.

(l to r) Dori, Britt Deerberg, Wendy, Jill, Sarah

These gals were all so smart and funny and warm and friendly.

I love Iowa!

Iowa City Part 2

Iowa City totally rocks!

(Thanks for the posters Horn!)


I met the kids at Horn and Roosevelt:

The kids from Roosevelt made these great posters of my book covers:

(l to r) Joan, me, Anne Marie

Me with Iowa City students

Hitting the road

I'm heading to Iowa City, Iowa on Sunday for a week.

I'll be doing a residency as a component of a Community Reading Month that is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year.

I'll be speaking to students from 19 Iowa City schools.

Past author residencies for this program have included Ashley Bryan, Pat Cummings, Jerry Spinelli, Brian Jacques, Gail Gibbons, Chris Crutcher, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, Lynn Reiser, E. B. Lewis, and Peter Catalanotto.

Last year's author was Deborah Wiles, so I have some big shoes to follow!

No, wait a minute, that's not the right expression. You FILL big shoes, not follow them, right?

And I am certainly not implying that Deborah Wiles has big feet.

She's a Southerner. I'm sure she has lovely little feet.

It's a hard act that you follow, not big shoes.

I have a hard act to follow.

But I'll give it my best shot.

Check it out

The end of October, I'll be visiting schools in the Iowa City Community School District as part of their Community Reading Month.

One of the sponsors (Hills Bank) designed a logo based on Greetings from Nowhere to be used on T-shirts and other promotional materials.

Pretty cool, huh?