Well, the official Gray Wolf Throne tour is history. The laundry is in the hamper, and the suitcase is back in the closet for now.
I had great intentions of blogging/posting every day, but some of that foundered on the rocks of reality. Many nights I returned to the hotel at 10 p.m., sat down at the computer, and immediately fell asleep in my chair.
It was wonderful to see so many of my online friends in person. Thank you to everyone who turned out along the way—you rock!! You’ll find photos of many of the events on my website here (scroll down to past events.) Thanks to the Webmaster for getting everything posted up so promptly!
I have some exciting events coming up in October—from local gigs in Ohio to appearances in Spartanburg, SC and the San Diego area. Hope to see you at one of these!
Stow-Munroe Falls Public Library Magic on the Page: Writing Young Adult Fantasy
Tuesday, October 4, 2011, 7 p.m.
3512 Darrow Road Stow, OH 44224
330-688-3295
OELMA Annual Conference
Ohio Educational Library Media Association
October 13-14, 2011
Columbus, OH Convention Center http://www.oelma.org/Conference.htm
Cuyahoga County Library Chagrin Falls Branch Writing Workshop: Worldbuilding, Elements of Fantasy Writing
October 20, 2011, 6-8 p.m.
100 East Orange Street
Chagrin Falls, Ohio 44022-2799
phone 440-247-3556
Books by the Banks Bookfest
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Duke Energy Convention Center http://booksbythebanks.org/
Barnes & Noble Booksellers, Oceanside, CA Author Reading and Signing Event
With Cinda Williams Chima, Garth Nix, and Sean Williams
Wednesday, October 26, 2011, 6-8 p.m.
El Camino North Shopping Center
2615 Vista Way
Oceanside, CA 92054
760-529-0106
Diversity in YA Signing Event
with Cindy Pon, Holly Black, Malinda Lo, Greg van Eekhout, Paolo Bacigalupi and Karen Healey
Thursday, October 27, 2011, 7 p.m.
The Poway Library
13137 Poway Rd.
Poway, CA 92064
858-513-2900
Library website: http://sdcl.org/locations_PW.html
Diversity in YA Website http://www.diversityinya.com/
World Fantasy Convention
October 27-31, 2011
Town and Country Resort and Convention Center
500 Hotel Circle North
San Diego, CA 92108 http://www.wfc2011.org/html/mainmenu.html
Tomorrow (Saturday) I'll be at the Elyria Public Library West River Branch for a presentation, book sale, and signing. Hope you can come out.
Elyria Public Library West River Branch Magic on the Page: Writing Young Adult Fantasy
Saturday, September 10, 1 p.m.
1194 West River Rd.
North Elyria, Ohio 44035
440-324-2270
http://www.elyria.lib.oh.us/locations.html
Since I posted my tour schedule, I’ve received several inquiries about how to obtain signed copies of The Gray Wolf Throne.
If you’re near any of my tour cities, I would love to see you in person! I’m willing to sign Nook covers, Kindles, etc, too. But if you’re unable to attend an event, it is still possible to obtain signed copies. You should be able to arrange to order a personalized signed copy from any of the bookstore venues on the tour as long as you contact them ahead of time. Bookstores often ask authors to sign stock, so there may be non-personalized signed copies available after the visit. Contact the bookstore to see.
The launch event is at my hometown bookstore, The Learned Owl, in Hudson, OH, on August 30, 2011. Visit their website for more information. Information about the Owl is also posted on my website.
Signed copies of my books can always be ordered from the Owl. If you contact them prior to the release date for GWT, they will be happy to take your order for a signed GWT, or any of my other books. I will sign them at the launch event and they will get them out to you right away.
Had a fabulous and energizing day at the Texas Library Association annual meeting in Austin. First off was the Lone Star Authors Shine panel with fellow Lone Stars James Dashner, Greg Taylor, Jordan Sonnenblick, Melissa Kantor, and Helen Frost.
That’s one of the best parts of this job—rubbing shoulders with awesome authors!
At the Disney-Hyperion booth, The Gray Wolf Throne arcs were a hot commodity. I enjoyed meeting hundreds of Texas librarians and re-acquainting myself with many more.
And then on to the Texas Teens for Literacy events. TLA does a fantastic job of getting teens involved in the conference. You could pick them out from their eye-catching yellow tee shirts. Why didn’t they have events like that when I was a teen?
First, I was on a panel with authors Melissa Kantor and Sophie Jordan.
Then it was on to the Teen Mingle room, where the teens made me feel like a total rock star.
Bravo, Texas! Now on to the Writers’ League of Texas YA A to Z conference.
Wow!! Can you believe it? The Demon King just released in paperback and The Exiled Queen release is only weeks away. Did you think this day would ever come? (I didn't.)
We are working on plans for my tour for the release of The Exiled Queen, and I've been working on a tour map to post on my website and blogs. The book will launch at The Learned Owl in Hudson, OH on September 28, 2010, and after that I'll be in Minneapolis, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, Texas, and Orlando, what with one thing and another. I hope I'm coming somewhere near you!
I’m just back from the SCBWI Summer Conference in Los Angeles. I came back on the “redeye,” one of those overnight flights that fool you into thinking you’ve had a night’s sleep. So I’m into dangerous blogging territory just now. Anything can happen. I’m just sayin’.
There are noticeably beautiful people in LA. Noticeably. And you look at somebody and you say to yourself, “That must be somebody.” Which, of course, it is. Somebody. Not necessarily somebody famous.
I am terrible at spotting celebrities. The only time I ever spotted a celebrity was one Thanksgiving in Sardi’s Restaurant years ago. Yul Brynner walked in wearing full King and I regalia—bare-chested, with pantaloons.
Exactly. Not much gets past me.
Somebody told me they saw Abigail Breslin of Little Miss Sunshine fame sitting in the hotel lobby. According to IMDB, she is up 35% in popularity this week.
Probably because she was spotted by over 1100 SCBWI members who then went to the IMDB page.
I signed up for the SCBWI Pro Track this time, which includes perks such as lunch with editors and being honored at a wine and cheese reception/book sale. Here I am at the book sale signing away next to Samantha Berger. Somehow, Samantha talked the bartender out of a second glass of wine for each of us…
Highlights included keynotes by M.T. Anderson, Carolyn Mackler, Jon Scieszka, and Rachel Vail. Rachel had us all mopping away tears.
And I must be in love with M.T. Anderson (or Tobin, as we 1100 really close friends call him) because I took seven pictures of him.
Those who spoke about the future of the publishing business were of three minds: 1. this is the best of times, 2. this is the worst of times, and 3. I have no idea what’s gonna happen. I’m in the group that gets tired when I hear about it.
Other things energized me. I learned some key technical enhancements at Bruce Hale’s session on Skyping the School Visit. I loved the panel on Narrative Nonfiction, which included Elizabeth Partridge, Tanya Lee Stone, and Deborah Heligman, whom I know from Kindling Words, along with Susan Campbell Bartoletti and Ken Wright, an agent who reps a lot of nonfiction. Gennifer Choldenko’s Keynote (“Kill the Bunnies: Writing Novels for Today’s Kids”) and her breakout on revision were stellar.
To paraphrase Lin Oliver, SCBWI president, an ill-timed earthquake could have wiped out the flower of children’s publishing.
My editor, Ari Lewin, was there, doing a workshop and critiques. We had an unspoken agreement not to discuss manuscript revisions.
I was able to meet my contacts from two regional SCBWI meetings I am speaking at—Linda Bernfeld from the Florida SCBWI, and Monica Harris and Leslie Helakoski from Michigan. Here is where you can find information about the Michigan conference and the Florida conference.
I got to reconnect with my critique partner, Jody Feldman, and we had delicious garlic noodles and seafood at Crustacean in Beverly Hills, where the server looked bewildered when I asked how much the seafood special was. "Ah--I'll check on that," he said.
Back home again, and got to wrap up that revision of Sword of Hanalea.
