This year, the American Library Association held it’s conference near me in San Francisco. This is the conference where they hand out their awards. Though I didn’t attend any of the workshops or events, walking the floor felt like a celebration of publishing. How could I miss that?!
ALA is completely overwhelming. Luckily, one of the first people I ran into were Debbie Ohi and Hazel Mitchell.
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| Photo by Debbie Ohi |
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| Hazel and Tracy |
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| I finally got to meet Dan Santat’s wife, Leah. |
I was on my own for the first day, but luckily, met Cindy Derby! We hung out all day and had a blast. Later I finally me Meg Fleming in person!
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| Cindy Derby, me, Lea Lyon, Meg Fleming, Pam Turner |
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| We found Renee Kurilla, too!!! |
Tracy has been swamped in deadlines lately, so she wasn’t able to go the first day, but I wore her down and got her to go the second day. How could she not visit her books on display at ALA?
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| Here we are on a very loud and celebratory train full of gay pride partiers. |
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| Not the Quitting Kind, illustrated by Tracy Bishop |
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| Pipsie illustrated by Tracy Bishop |
I thought the SCBWI LA conference was like being in a live version of Twitter, but the ALA conference is even more so. Every time I turned around there was someone I know, follow, or have heard of. I talked to everyone! Half the time I made no sense, but I really didn’t care. It was wonderful.
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| Arree Chung of Live in a Story and author/illustrator of Ninja! |
Did you see this pic on Publisher’s Weekly? I loved meeting Salina Yoon!!! She’s the best!
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| How adorable are they? Philip and Erin Stead. |
And I met Linette Kim from the Bloomsbury marketing team. I have an announcement coming about this soon. She had me in tears!
