Month: March 2007

Short entry because it’s late and the day starts early tomorrow.

It did not start early today, thank goodness. I enjoyed a lovely breakfast, read my book, talked to family members and chilled until it was time to leave for Dayton. When I got there, I was shocked to see an actual crowd. On a Sunday. The bookseller was happy, the author was happy, the readers were happy. Happy, happy Dayton.

This is just one section of the crowd, The Extreme Readers Book Club from Ross, Ohio. Thank you Jen Rettig and Alyssa White for bringing the group!

I was moved to tears by these two, Sue and Georgina Grant. I met them 19 years ago when Sue’s family and mine moved into the same neighborhood. Our girls played together for years.

After Dayton, I hopped in the car and headed for Columbus, Home of the Movie Version of Speak. I was certain that few people would come out. I mean, come on – a Sunday night? During March Madness? With the event held in a high school? I had low expectations and felt bad for the bookseller.

Once again, Columbus came through for me. We had 125 people who wanted to spend their Sunday night with me. It was a magnificent audience (waves hi to the kids in the back row) and I wound up talking for more than an hour. bananagirl19 posted about the presentation on her LiveJournal. Many of the people there were teachers. One was Ann Laubach, who I grew up playing with as a kid in Syracuse. (Small world, eh?)

“But,” you exclaim in wonderment. “How could that be? The Georgetown/UNC game was playing. How could you have missed it?”

Once again, my LJ friends came to the rescue. toomuchtv37 had her mom texting her throughout my presentation. Every ten minutes or so I would point to her and she gave us all an update on the score. I talked and talked and signed a lot of books and the game was tied at the buzzer. And my girl toomuchtv37 kept me up to date. And, then? And then! She came up to me with the glorious news – Georgetown won!!!!

Bless you, toomuchtv37. Bless you, and your mom, and modern technology. Hoya saxa, indeed.

TOMORROW’S SCHEDULE

12:00 PM
Speaking at Lapeer West High School (not open to public, sorry)

Sponsored by:
Halfway Down the Stairs
114 E. 4th St.
Rochester, MI 48307

7:00 PM
Signing at Southfield Public Library (yay! open to public!)
(event location) 26300 Evergreen Rd.
Southfield, MI 48076

Sponsored by The Book Beat
26010 Greenfield
Oak Park, MI 48237

It was another early flight out of Miami, but it wasn’t hard to make the plane because I was still buzzing with adrenaline from the Books & Books event. I flew North, to Ohio.

My author schlepper here is Kathy Tirschek. (The proper title is “media escort.”) Her job is to take me from event to event, and make my life on book tour as smooth as possible. Kathy is a total pro. As we drove to Fort Thomas, KY to the first event, I didn’t even notice the car was moving.

The Blue Marble Bookstore, an independent children’s bookstore, was my first stop of the day. I met the owners, Tina and Peter Moore at the McConnell Literature Conference years ago, and it was delightful to finally make it to their store. Along with being wonderful people and experts on children’s literature, their bookstore has a Goodnight Moon room.

Haven’t you always wanted to step into a book?