FORGE book tour – Week 1, part 1

First – apologies for not posting in the past week. Things have been crazy, wonderful and busy.

Second – thank you, Garrison Keillor!!! I have been a huge fan of his forever and a long-time follower of his daily Writer’s Almanac feature. So you can imagine my thrill when I woke up this morning and found out that Garrison featured my birthday!!!! (Ahem, yes that is today.) And as if that wasn’t enough – HE PRONOUNCED “HALSE” CORRECTLY!!!!

(Pardon me while I do a few cartwheels!)

The other author mentioned today? Some dude named Michael Crichton. What Mr. Keillor probably doesn’t know yet is that YA authors Alex Flinn and Gordon Korman were also born today.

How old am I today? 49 years old. Which means that now the two-year celebration of my 50th can begin!! (I am not one of those people who freak out about getting older. I figure the alternative is to be dead, and I’m not ready for that yet.)

What am I going to do today? The Book Tour Gods kindly arranged things so that after I spoke at the English teacher’s conference yesterday, I was able to go HOME, which means I woke up in my own bed this morning (awesome!) and started my day with a mug of tea brewed by my Beloved Husband. Right now I’m hanging with my dogs and replaying Garrison Keillor’s thrilling pronunciation of my name over and over again. Might have to turn it into my ring tone.

In a couple of hours I am headed west to Rochester, NY, where I will be speaking at the Pittsford Barnes & Noble at 3 pm today. Care to join me?

In other news, FORGE has hit the streets and Week One of the Book Tour is officially over. Here are some highlights:

The Texas Book Festival in Austin was a blast.

cheerleaders at Webb MS I visited a couple middle schools and was cheerfully greeted. Thank you, ladies!!

 

 

 

 

food!! Also got to hang out with friends and eat Mexican food at a kidlit party. From the right in this photo: David Weisner, Tony DiTerlizzi, some guy I don’t know, and Varian Johnson.

 

 

 

 

Fryhover Family! The Fryhover family currently holds the “Drove The Farthest To Laurie’s Event” award. They drove 9.5 HOURS to see me in Austin. They are totally getting Mad Woman in The Forest tee-shirts.

 

 

 

 

author's best friend Along with visiting schools, libraries, and book stores, I spent several mornings on the phone doing interviews with radio stations all over the country. Anytime you can do an interview in your pajamas it’s a good thing.

 

 

 

Must get ready for my event now. More later, I promise!!