Take me out to the book game! Linda Sue Park will be in Seattle on Saturday with her new book KEEPING SCORE.

The event will be at my favorite library branch, Ballard.*

4:00pm
Ballard Public Library
5614 22nd Ave. NW
Seattle, WA 98107

Linda is super smart, funny, kind, wise, a true hot lady of children's literature.

Come see her in person and check out her ALL her groovy titles!

* Ballard Library is not only lovely, but a block from Secret Garden Books AND a fabric store AND Majestic Bay Theater AND Caffe Fiore AND Cupcake Royale! Oh, how I miss you sweet Ballard.

Hoo Boy. Inside Story was yesterday, the last day of Children's Book Week and smack dab in the middle of the U District Street Fair. I love the smell of sweaty patchoulied college student in the morning.

The Inside Story presenters, however, smelled delightful and fresh. They all did an excellent job on their short, but sweet presentations. These people are so awesome! I know they are talented, gifted, thoughtful creators, but I love to see them toot their own horns in public. All the books presented last night are wonderful books they've written or illustrated or both. Like lovely lovely lovely Laura McGee Kvasnosky. That is her adorable dog and girl above that graced our invites and programs.

The main goal of Inside Story is to get our amazing local talent in front of booksellers, librarians, teachers, and the media with the hope of providing connections between the two groups for future speaking or workshop opportunities. And getting these great books into libraries, classrooms, book reviews and stores.

But being none of those invited professionals I still LOVE listening to Inside Story presentations because it reminds me that in Washington alone at least 15 people had their dreams of making children's books come true this spring:

BONNY BECKER
JENNIFER BRADBURY
ERIK BROOKS
ANDREA HELMAN
KATHLEEN KEMLY
LAURA MCGEE KVASNOSKY
RICHARD & STEFFANIE LORIG
MARGARET READ MACDONALD
CRAIG ORBACK
L.L. OWENS
DEBORAH REBER
CAROLE LEXA SCHAEFER
SUZANNE WILLIAMS
PAM WITHERS

Great job you guys!

And yes, we moved! We are still unpacking and haven't found all our stuff quite yet. For breakfast this morning I ate cereal out of a flower pot with some BBQ tongs.

Moving! We've spent every waking weekend minute getting ready for the big move to our new house. Which means boxes and boxes and cleaning and yard work. And constant companionship from animals that I thought loved me, but are, in fact, trying to kill me. Always underfoot when carrying a fifty pound box of exposed knives or my terrarium of highly poisonous angry geckos.

I took care of our rental yard which had sort of become a jungle, too. And the weed whacker wasn't plugged in correctly and started to smoke from its outlet. I thought I was just doing a really good job. Really whacking those weeds. But the smoke wasn't a sign of skill, just an early electrical fire.

And I'm limping. I talked Aaron into a final Redmill burger fest last night since we won't be living near one anymore. Afterward, as we were walking to the car he complained that he felt awful after eating food like that, like bricks were in his stomach. I felt fantastic and to show him so I leapt to the car like a gazelle. A beautiful, graceful gazelle UNTIL my last leap which landed in a pothole and crunched my ankle and slammed me to the pavement. So now I'm a limpy troll with two scraped and bruised knees limping around with my boxes of knives and a half open bag of frozen corn kernels tied to my left knee. Maybe gazelles watch where they're leaping to.

Roast chicken? Logan, a dog who should be more mature at the ripe old age of 4 can't resist a roast chicken left on the kitchen counter. We had dinner last night and were in the dining room. JUST finished our last bites when we heard a funny dead-chicken-flopping sound. This makes it the fourth roast chicken since February that Logan has tried to "free."

I was gone the first time it happened -- in New York. And Aaron called to tell me Logan had gotten his paws on a roast chicken and eaten every square inch of it. Like the chicken never existed. It sounds like Logan had a moment similar to that scene in Requiem For A Dream. It is now his high of choice.

You'd think we'd know better by now, too. We keep thinking he wouldn't be so bold as to try it again in broad daylight with us only a wall away. We put the bird waaaay far back on the counter to let it cool, but somehow Logan turns into a ninja and surprises us with his tenacity, stealth, and unbelievable reach.

For me, I can't resist signing up for conferences and retreats. I just signed up for the SCBWI Int'l LA conference in August, I'm going to BEA in May (as a media escort,) and I plan on signing up for our 2nd Annual Fall retreat whenever we open registration. Conferences are expensive, but the Seattle one convinced me of how important making personal connections in the industry is and how much more opportunity you have to do that at a conference. And wonderful critical feedback on work. And showing your work in public -- not crying into your roast chicken alone on the kitchen floor (I don't do that, but illustrating IS lonely.) And it is a high. I heard so many helpful things at this last conference. This new knowledge has informed and changed all of the projects I'm working on.

For starters, from Jim's workshop, I'll try out Vista Print to make some new postcards for a summer mailing. I'm not sure about the type at the bottom, but I really like this image and heard nice things about it at the conference.

Not sure how to make a rolling list of links at the side of my blog. Here's the best I can do: a whole Links category.

Here are some cool illustrators that I adore:

Karen Chalupnik is doing super art at The Nik Notebooks.

Dana Arnim is a watercolor wizard at her eponymous site.

Jim Di Bartolo is ink-tastic at Jimbo Jabber.

Jennifer Mann can't stop winning prizes at Red Wagon.

Alison Friend is too cool for school at Browndogfriend.

Kirsten Carlson puts the Oh! in oceanic art at her site.

And my first decorative purchase for the new house? A Laini's freakin' garden lady! It is kind of like having Laini herself hanging out in my garden which would be so cool because (besides being an awesome, kind, and interesting person) she usually has cupcakes.

HEY! Don't you think the company that makes Laini's Ladies should get Jim to make some 'Jim's Gents'? They could use his art to make masculine and broody garden pot stakes, ornaments, manly fans...or instead of fans - flasks?

Thanks to Betsy for her great conference session on blogging. Now I'm looking at other blogs she mentioned. One blog that came up is BIG A LITTLE A and her link to some other blog on how to come up with your children's book pen name. Or maybe JUST pen name – I'm making it from children's books only:

My name would be James Cabbage Quimby.

James Marshall, Cabbage our dog, and Ramona Quimby.

What is your name?

Here's a little sculpture of Cabbage my mom made when I was a baby.

And here is my attempt at sharing. My hungry bunnies. I've been working on them recently and a story to go with that is currently *all* dialogue (I do think this book could be written by someone with the middle name of Cabbage):

Our super Western Washington Conference was last weekend. It was so chock-a-block with children's book industry superstars and phenomenal advice and inspiration that I'm still processing it all. In fact, it was like a good layer of chicken manure to my writing and illustrating idea seedlings. But more on manure later.

Top four conference highlights for me:

1) Seeing family. My cousin, It, came over from Eastern Washington. It loves two things: Kirsten Carlson and SCBWI. It is working on an edgy Yeti YA and is shopping around for an agent, so this conference was right up It's alley.

2) Meeting conference faculty and attendees. Our conference goers were so sweet, smart and talented – I really enjoyed getting to know some of them better.

And the faculty was amazing – those I got to see and talk with:

Betsy Bird – smarty pants firecracker with a killer wardrobe and terribly nice husband (picture stolen from Laini's blog, Betsy's hubbie not pictured, but he is also a dapper dresser)

Newbery Dream Team with my dearest Kirby and newly-dear-to-me Susan Patron and Cynthia Lord

Potter Champion and children's book guru Arthur Levine with adorable Sara and Jolie, most freakin' awesome organized Regional Advisors ever (where are their blogs? I don't know. Let's start a petition to make them start.)

Best-reasons-to-move-to-Portland Laini and Jim (Um, no lovelier couple exists. I think they are the Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy of SCBWI except Jim isn't ever proud or prejudiced... Sometimes he's a turkey, though)

Most favorite art director Laurent Linn (with me and Dana)

Rockstar agents Stephen Barbara and Marcia Wernick (with delightful Jessica Garrison)

Always killer Joni Sensel (with superstar Rosemary Stimola)

Not pictured: Cool hand Gary Luke; Razzle dazzle Nina Hess; Really Truly Laura McGee Kvasnosky; Lovely, lovely, lovely (that's three times lovely) Randi Rivers; Very nice and non-Hollywood Royce Buckingham

And other wonderful faculty I didn't have a chance to connect with, but have only heard good things about and wish they were local.

3) Cupcakes

4) Consultations
I can't tell you how helpful the manuscript and dummy consultations I had were. Actually, I CAN tell you – worth their weight in gold. Or chicken manure. Besides attending a conference this is one of the best investments you can make. If you have a manuscript or dummy that you've slaved over and revised, but are looking for that extra nudge in the right direction you'll get that with a consultation. Meeting with smart industry professionals for your critique can take your piece from woe to wow.

Back to manure. Here's a picture of my chest! Braving lines longer than at Disneyland yesterday I bought some vegetable, herb, and flower plants from the Seattle Tilth Association at the Good (German) Shepherd Center. I'm really really excited for spring - to be in the dirt again after years of waiting for a real yard. I'm not sure if this is analogous to my children's book career or not. I feel like I've been in a long line waiting to get to where I want to be without a real place to call my own in the children's book world. And this conference made me feel like I'm getting closer.

And lord. Chompo Blog. I'm not sure why it is so hard to post sometimes. It is daunting to share sketches and share in general. But now, with oodles of physical and... mental? manure all over my yard and me - with my new garden on its way – I'm hoping to revitalize my blog postings, too. Betsy's conference session on blogging was very inspirational. A good kick in the pants. And everyone at the conference was so nice I'd be happy to share just about anything with those people. Even my manure :)