Gennifer, Barbara, me

I just got back from Dallas for the Texas Library Association conference. A whirlwind trip, staying at the beautiful Adolphus Hotel Wednesday and Thursday nights.  The real purpose of the visit was to be on a panel with Gennifer Choldenko (Newbery Honor book Al Capone Does My Shirts, If a Tree Falls at Lunch Period, www.choldenko.com ) and Barbara O’Connor (How To Steal a Dog, Fame and Glory in Freedom, Georgia, www.barboconnor.com). I’d met Gennifer before when we were receiving Pennsylvania Keystone to Reading Awards and we presented together, and it was a pleasure to meet Barbara for the first time. We were all grateful to the intrepid librarians who attended our 8:00 a.m. session!  And grateful, also, to moderator Viki Ash for setting a very comfortable tone and keeping the interesting questions coming.

Other highlights of the conference: hanging out with my editor, Susan Kochan, and the inimitable Tomie dePaola (Strega Nona, the 26 Fairmont Avenue books and so many more, www.tomie.com), for a couple of hours Wednesday afternoon, getting to know the Penguin marketing people lots better, getting to do a little manuscript work with my editor, Susan, one to one instead of on the telephone. And then there was the cocktail party Thursday night. I cabbed it there with T.A. Barron (the Lost Years of Merlin books and so many more) and Penguin’s Kim Lauber. At the party, I got to reconnect with Gennifer and Barbara, finally meet Toni Buzzeo (Dawdle Duckling, Our Librarian Doesn’t Tell Us Anything www.tonibuzzeo.com ) whom I had emailed a while back because in her previous life as a librarian, Toni was at Longfellow School in Maine. (In case you don’t know, that’s where Humphrey goes to school. Well, not necessarily in Maine; here are lots of other Longfellow Schools as it turns out.)

Then the group joined Newbery winners Linda Sue Park (A Single Shard) and Lynn Rae Perkins (Criss Cross), and I had a great chat with Linda. I had been invited to dinner with Gennifer and her the previous night but was already committed to having dinner with my editor and some librarians from the Coppell school district. By the way, a lovely group at a great restaurant, Hibiscus.

After the party, the Penguin people (I know, it sounds funny – they don’t wear funny tuxes) took John Erickson (Hank the Cowdog), Neal Shusterman (Unwind, The Schwa Was Here, etc.) and me to the Dallas Fish Market, another wonderful restaurant. It was raining as we left, so we got soaked on the way back but it’s sort of embarrassing to take a cab one block.  (Susan was at a memoir event with Tomie.)

THANKS-THANKS-THANKS Scottie, RaShahn, Emily, Kim! And Susan, of course. I can never thank Susan enough for taking on Humphrey to begin with and I always enjoy hanging out with her. She and I cabbed it to the Dallas airport Friday morning and that was that!

I am home for one day and then leave early Sunday morning to fly to Tulsa for the Oklahoma Library Association conference and receiving their state award, the Sequoyah Award. More fun!