I can’t believe none of you mentioned this. I mean, it was perfectly obvious. The activity I was supposed to be doing, to prepare for the book launch:
Shopping.
Whew. I feel so much more prepared, now that I’ve bought a dress.
The official release date for Anywhere But Here is October 15th. Then, on October 29th, we celebrate! Hope you can come!
There were times, decades ago when I had one of those real job thingies, when coming home from vacation made me cry. Windowless office, masses of work, onset of rain. It was enough to make a girl go freelance forever.
Thankfully, my life is much brighter these days, and my return from the Okanagan was especially easy, thanks to a fall packed with things to look forward to. That book in the right-hand column? Release date October 15!
Also at the top of my list: seeing friend and fellow Inkslinger Rachelle Delaney at the Writer’s Fest on October 22nd.
Want to come? I’m buying early-bird tickets on September 3rd.
Anyone hanging out in my hometown? My friend, editor, and former roommate Antonia Banyard is reading at the Creston library on Tuesday, June 4th, at 7pm, as part of the One Book One Kootenay celebration. If you haven’t yet picked up her novel Never Going Back, it’s wonderful and funny and packed with secret winks that any Kootenay resident will recognize.
You can read my original review of Never Going Back here!
Just a reminder that I’m speaking on the VPL’s Getting Started in Children’s Books panel tonight. Hope to see you there!
Lots of fun book events on the horizon! Here’s a few I’m going to… want to come?
Rachelle Delaney’s launch of The Metro Dogs of Moscow on February 7th at Kidsbooks. Check out Vikki VanSickle’s review of the book, then get your launch details!
The Vancouver Children’s Literature Roundtable illustrator breakfast with Oliver Jeffers. I’ll let this video do the explaining for that event:
The Getting Started in Children’s Books 2013 panel discussion at the Vancouver Library, organized by the lovely Ellen Schwartz. If you have a manuscript stashed away in your underwear drawer, this is the place for you.
Reasons to join me at Rachelle Delaney’s book launch on February 7th at Kidsbooks:
1. Rachelle is awesome, and so is her book.
2. Penguin has done a gorgeous job, right down to the endpapers.
3. It’s not every day you get to fall in love with a jack russell terrier. And I promise, you will.
You know what’s interesting about the idea of me speaking in public, with no prepared topics, answering questions posed by the audience? It’s this: ANYTHING could happen. I could be calm and collected and say reasonable, intelligent things. Or, I could get nervous and spout complete nonsense.
Fortunately, there are several more clever people on this particular panel, and I’m sure they’ll offer advice that’s actually helpful.
Hope to see you there!
I stay home. I do not flit about the town. I do not wear clothing suitable for public events. I do not say socially appropriate things for longer than one to two hours at a time.
Except for last week.
We went to the Springsteen concert on Monday, Camp Read-a-Lot at the school on Tuesday (see last season’s event here), an emergency preparedness workshop on Wednesday (good to take action on one’s personal paranoias), and a Cirque du Soleil performance on Friday.
Whew! And I couldn’t even complain about being too old for all of that activity because Bruce is 62, and he was hosting a good ol’ fashioned tent revival on stage as if he’d never had a down day in his life.
Between it all, I wrote. And I’m so close to the end of a first draft (six chapters to go), it’s killing me. So close, and yet so far. And so many problems to go back and fix, of course!
Maybe if I play Springsteen anthems in the background…
There are many things to feel Pollyanna-esque about, here in the world of Kyi.
It has been a ridiculously busy October. But now I have coffee made, a stash of Halloween candy at my side, and nothing but fun writing to do for the rest of the week.
Happy Halloween!