October 2007 – Page 4 – Laurie Halse Anderson

October 15, 2007

Portland dinner

I was lucky enough last night to have dinner with a group of people from the Multnomah County Library system (the nice folks who brought me out here) at a lovely Italian restaurant a couple of blocks from my hotel. (I had a fra diablo spaghetti studded with shrimp, clams, and fish.)

But I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s back up to the conversation before we ordered. They were all telling me what a wonderful place Portland is: artsy, eco-friendly, mellow, and affordable (compared to Los Angeles, not Mexico, NY). Just as they were listing the authors who live in the region, Ellen, the last person in our group to arrive, walked in with a friend. This friend was on her way to dinner at another restaurant, but wanted to drop in to say hello.

Who was the friend?

Virginia Euwer Wolff, amazing YA author of Make Lemonade, True Believer, Bat 6, The Mozart Season, and many others. I had met her before, but it is always a thrill. She said her hellos to everyone and left for her own dinner.

Happy Teen Read Week, indeed!

I sat between Jenn and Lindsey, who will be introducing me at my events tonight and tomorrow. We had a blast, especially when it came time for dessert.

I had tiramisu. (Loved the bottom layer. Top layer was a little rich.)

Jenn had the lemoncake with berry sauce

and Lindsey had this almond thingie.

I woke up a lot last night, confused about time zones and sunrises and whatnot, but I got enough sleep. It’s finally light out, so I’m going for a run. I wish I could explore a little today, but I really need to work on my revision, so that’s what I’ll be doing until it’s time to leave to give my speech.

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October 14, 2007

Michiganextravaganza

I’m in Oregon now, free wifi at my hotel – wa-hoo!

I need to catch you up on my Michigan adventure. First the Detroit airport. Which I love

because they have one of those cool colorful tunnels that connects the consourses

and it changes color

a lot!

Connecting through Detroit always means a trip to Sora, in terminal A, near gate 36

for sushi and miso soup.

The Michigan SCBWI conference was wonderful; extremely friendly (God, I love Midwesterners) and upbeat. Big thanks to (aka She Who Helped With the Myspace Mess In August) for making the drive from Canada, and the conference organizers, and all of the attenders who made me feel right at home.

And there was a real-live reader there! Meet my new friend, Eliza Webb, whose mom was at the conference and who totally made my day by coming over to talk to me.

Along with giving speeches and critiquing manuscripts and meeting kindred spirits, I snuck in a run on a beautiful autumn day. But truly, the highlight of the visit for me was this: Jello salad with Mystery Bits in it. This is a staple at United Methodist dinners, which were a staple of my childhood. If you read CATALYST and wondered about the Jello salad, this is what I was talking about. It’s green, it wiggles, and it might be an ingredient in embalming fluid. But damn, it tastes good.

So now I am in Oregon and I have been awake for a million hours. I am at the coolest hotel I have ever stayed at, and I had a great dinner with librarians, and a Famous Author wandered by, and I even worked for a couple hours on my revisions, but all those details will have to wait until after I get some sleep!

Zzzzzzzzzzzz

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October 12, 2007

I could use a little music help

So I am sitting in the Detroit airport right now, catching up on my email and looking forward to sushi for lunch. I’ll take pictures, I promise. The flight here was on time and uneventful; loverly. Fingers crossed for the next leg of the trip.

Theo has been working away at his forge, crafting a new look for my website. It is still very much a work-in-progress, but here is a sneak peek at the Novels page.

And here’s the new look for the homepage.

What do you think? (Not all of the buttons work yet, so don’t worry about that. Just tell us what you like and what you don’t like.)

I also asked Theo to put together pages for playlists for all my books. This is where I’d love your ideas: What songs would you put on the playlist for: SPEAK, CATALYST, PROM, TWISTED, & FEVER 1793 (I am looking at you, for that one!)?

edited to add I forgot to mention our early morning adventure in the Forest. We woke up at 4am as scheduled. Minor complication: no power. I got dressed and put on my make-up by candlelight, while Beloved Husband valiantly made coffee by boiling water and handpouring it through the coffee-filled filter. He let the dog out to do her business just as we were preparing to leave. One nanosecond later, he bellowed for her to come back in. I had caught a whiff of skunk and assumed the worse.

Yes, it was a critter, but it was a raccoon raiding the dog’s food bowl in her pen. Nothing was left of the skunk but the stink. Crisis averted. Packed the car, grabbed the coffee and hit the road at 4:30am. As we headed for town, BH said, “You blew out all the candles, right?” Me: “….. ah, I think so?”

We drove back. Yep, I had blown out all candles. House and dog were safe. The raccoon was full. And the skunk was probably watching all of this from the cover of a hollowed-out log, laughing his fool stripe off.

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October 11, 2007

Checking off to-do list items

Copyedited manuscript of Independent Dames sent off. check.
Critiques printed out out and packed. check.
Opening conference speech written & printed. check.
Revision speech written & printed. check.
Revision hand-outs assembled. check.
Revision hand-outs copied – not yet! Must drop off on the way to the hairdressers!
Portland speeches written. check.
Portland speeches printed – not yet! Need to look over one more time.
First half of revision of historical submitted. le grand sigh. Nope.
All tomatoes roasted. check!!!

So – things are a little busy ’round here today. I leave veeeeeeery early tomorrow for an SCBWI conference in Michigan. From there I fly to sunny Portland Oregon for Teen Read Week festivities.

Last night BH came up with a great addition to our Life Is Too Short List: “Life is too short to eat burnt popcorn.” Which I was about to do because I am obsessively frugal sometimes. He threw it out and popped me another bag.

Rest of today’s to-do list:
Empty email box.
Go to bank.
Pay bills.
Hang out with my parents and help them with a couple of things.
Get hair cut.
Pack suitcase and backpack.
…sneak in a little revision time…
Read.
Chill with husband and dog.

I leave you with some photos from the last couple of weeks.

SCBWI Fall Philly Phriends.