So. My trip to New York City last Thursday?
Yep! I was invited to the offices of The New York Times. The very nice people there are running a review of WINTERGIRLS on May 10th, and wanted me to come in to record a podcast for their website. As soon as it’s up, we’ll post the link.
And yes, my little heart was going pitter-pat, pitter-pat, pitter-pat the whole time because growing up in my house the Times was revered as the top of the mountain in terms of both journalism and culture. Being invited there to speak about my work was an incredible honor.
I came very close to swooning as I was leaving because the next author recording a podcast was Colson Whitehead. But I managed not to.
The weekend was one giant celebration because
our Officemouse graduated from college!!! Not only did she graduate, but she graduated summa cum JOB: two jobs actually; a substitute teaching job that starts next week and goes to the end of the school year, and a full-year job as an 8th grade science teacher starting in September.
The entire clan turned out to celebrate.
Here is Officemouse with her village of parents: stepmom Sue, her dad, Officemouse (aka Meredith Anderson), me and BH. We are incredibly proud of her!!!!
And now I am in Minneapolis for the International Reading Association conference. Today I’ll be signing at the Scholastic Bookfair booth and the Anderson’s Bookshop booth (both in the exhibit hall), then speaking on a panel this afternoon with John Green, David Yoo, Alex Sanchez, and Sean Beaudoin. Tonight, I’ll be speaking outside the convention. I’m not sure if it is open to the public or not. Here are the details:
7pm: TEEN EVENT AT THE LOFT LITERARY CENTER
Location: The Loft Literary Center
1011 Washington Ave S, Ste 200
Minneapolis, MN 55415
Phone: (612) 215-2571
I’ll try to take lots of pics today, I promise!
Sure sounds like your cup runith over. The New York Times!!! Did you have to pinch yourself to make sure it was real? Congrats to Officemouse!!!! I like your reference to Meredith’s “village of parents”. What a lovely way to put it.
You’re living the life, lady!
CONGRATS to officemouse/soon to be teacher! WOOT!
WriterLady Meets The Grey Lady. W00t! Congrats on your ever-souring success.
And the same to officemouse for graduating and getting the JOB. Eighth-grade science teacher. I bow down to your courage. 🙂
Congrats on the NY Times, and also on the daughter’s graduation, Laurie! I love Wintergirls, and just wrote a critical essay about it for my MFA program at Vermont.
I’m so impressed with your blended family thing being so amicable. My son and his wife are going through a divorce, and I just keep wishing that they could be FRIENDS! Kudos to you.
xoxox
Linda
Congratulations to you and to Officemouse! Talk about a week of excitement.
Happy Monday,
Raj
NY times and thou and me, too
CHARLES AND EMMA is in the Times on Sunday, too. So exciting! If I were not too tired to jump up and down I would. O.K. I am jumping in my chair.
I wrote about Queen Louise in my blog. http://deborah18.livejournal.com/
Really, actually, I coveted Queen Louise in my blog.
Actually, I’M the one who feels squeezed out on occasion. You may have noticed that the top-line acknowledgement in Wintergirls belongs to SUE. 🙂 Don’t be surprised if one day they co-author a book on the topic of amicable blended families. Won’t THAT freak some people out!
Officemouse’s dad
Congrats Meredith! We’ll miss you at MU!
Congratulations, Office Mouse, “Miss Anderson”–get used to that from the middle schoolers! We’ll miss you at MU!
Kim McCollum-Clark (English Dept–remember when you came in my office with Tammy and said “Why do you have so much YA?”
And “Mom”–congratulations to you and the whole crowd on one more through!