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I am so bloated with pie and stuffing I can barely reach the keyboard. God, I love Thanksgiving! Ours was relatively small and quiet – it was the first time we had an Official Boyfriend at the table, and the first time I ate T’giving dinner with my parents in 22 years, so yeah, I had a blast. Beloved Husband did most of the cooking because a) he is much better at it than I am, and b) he does a great job. My job is to set tables and wash dishes. We find that I poison fewer people that way. I do make wicked good soup however, so I spent yesterday boiling the turkey carcass to death and turning it into gallons of turkey soup. I think I ate forty pounds of leftovers while I was making the soup. One of these years I will convince BH that we should cook the entire T’giving meal the day before the holiday so we can eat the best part – leftovers – on the day itself.

This weekend is Catching Up on Paperwork Weekend. Be still my beating heart. Ack. I loathe paperwork. I loathe the business end of being an author. But this is a necessary evil. If I’m a really, really good girl and get caught up on everything, then I go back to RevisionLand when the house gets quiet on Monday morning. One set of children headed back to PA yesterday morning, another set turned up for the weekend yesterday afternoon (here – have some soup!), plus we have a painter here, so things are a wee bit chaotic right now.

Before I dive into the morass, I promised the last NCTE photos. Wait until you see what I got the English teachers to do…

Along with being thankful for traditional things like my family, friends, not being dead, pie, books, pie, college basketball, and pie, I am also thankful for these things:

1. The gentle snow that is falling right now.
2. The mug of tea at my left elbow.
3. Lunch with Meredith yesterday.
4. The people who salted Route 81 last night so I made it home from NCTE safely.
5. The amazing teachers I met at NCTE. (I’ll post my last conference photos later.)
6. The fact that NCTE was my last speaking gig for three months.
7. The stack of books on my desk waiting to be read.
8. Stef and Jared arriving tonight.
9. Our house smells like pumpkin pie. (I know I mentioned pie above, but one cannot talk about it enough, IMHO.)
10. Tomorrow is my favorite holiday of the year!!!

What are you thankful for?

News flash: a moment of silence please, out of respect for the passing of Ruth Siems, the genius who invented Stove Top Stuffing.

I’m not sure if this is the Great Cold of Schenectady, Part II, or some new-fangled Pittsburgh bug, but the symptoms hit again Sunday. I do not feel like death, but I have that hesitant, lurking feeling, like a viral stalker is hiding behind the potted plants, waiting for me to stop drinking fluids so it can pounce on me and suck out all my energy and refill my sinuses with quick-hardening cement.

If you think I am a slightly hysterical, near-hypochondriac now, you should have known me as a kid.

I didn’t have too many things to do on Sunday, besides blow my nose. Beth and I had long, long conversations about the standard high school curriculum, what I don’t like about it, and how unprepared so many kids are for college and real life. We sat in the lobby of our hotel which she called a giant living room. It is decorated for Christmas, which normally would irritate me, but it doesn’t here because this feels like some other-worldly place in which everyone loves books and cares about teenagers and it is OK to have Christmas trees in giant living rooms.

Last night was the big ALAN reception. ALAN stands for The Assembly on Literature for Adolescents. It is a part of the National Council of Teachers of English. If you teach English, Language Arts, Writing, Reading, etc. to teens, you really should belong to this group. They will enrich your classroom and help keep you inspired. If you are a new English teacher and the thought of paying dues to join something makes your wallet whimper, then ask the people who love you to give you a membership as a holiday gift. But really, it’s not that expensive, and you do not have to join NCTE to belong to ALAN (although you probably want to!).

So anyway, we went to the ALAN party, which rocked the house. The room was crammed with authors and teachers. I was glad we got there early because I had been craving cheese all day and I was able to snag a couple pieces of Havarti before the mob hit the door. I lost count of how many people I talked to and only remembered to take a couple of photos. Thank you so much to all of the teachers who shared their stories of how they use my books in their classes.

One of my favorite people in the whole world was there last night, Walter Dean Myers. If you have not read his books yet, you must. Put it on this week’s to-do list. He is one of the finest American authors alive today. Not surprisingly, he also has a talented son, Christopher Myers, who illustrates as well as writes. Chris wasn’t there last night, but Walter was, and it did my heart good to see him again. But I am an idiot, so I forgot to take his picture.

The photos I did manage to take

A glorious day of rest! Slept in, ate a sloooow breakfast, talked with Beth the Best Girl Friend, talked some more, talked, talked (you see where I’m going here) drank tea, talked, etc. This was all recovery from last night’s fun: a nice dinner and party that flew by way too fast.

OK, maybe not so scandalous. But you clicked. That’s how powerful words are.

The dinner had yummy food and highly dignified pats of butter, seen here with the help of the lovely and talented Lori Goodson of Kansas. It was put on by Penguin, who publishes all my YA books.

After dinner, three authors read from their works – T.A. Barron, Joan Bauer, and me. (Yes, I read a few pages from my WIP. It was nerve-wracking, but they seemed to like it.)

After dinner, we headed to the Simon & Schuster dessert party. I’m pretty sure I saw M.T. Anderson, but I didn’t get a chance to talk to him or stalk him for a photo. I did see these folks:

Patrick Jones

Very cool teachers Connie and Judy from Ohio, and Jill from New Hampshire.

Annette Curtis Klause, who had the best earrings, but this photo does not show them well.

and finally, Chris Lynch, whose new book, Inexcusable, is one that I highly recommend.

That’s all for now. It’s time to get read for the ALAN reception, which is a gathering of teachers, professors and authors who all care deeply about books for teenagers. Will def. be a good night. Pictures tomorrow!

You know the best way to travel to the National Council of Teachers of English conference? Drive 7.5 hours to Pittsburgh with your best girlfriend in the car. BGF (aka Beth the College Professor) and I have not had the chance to talk our fool heads off in way too long, so that’s what we did the whole drive. It seemed like we were only in the car for an hour or so.

When we arrived, our room wasn’t ready so we changed out of our scuzzy traveling clothes in a hotel bathroom and did our make-up in the mirror while chatting with two girls who go to a local high school whose English teacher is Ms. Dana Getz. There are a million English teachers in Pittsburgh right now, so consider this your shout-out, Ms. Getz, in case I don’t run into you.

I spoke on a panel about bullying that was organized by C. J. Bott, author of The Bully in the Book and in the Classroom. Also on the panel were Graham Salisbury, and one of my favorite writers:

James Howe.

And there was a book signing. And then not enough sleep. And after breakfast this morning, another book signing. And another book signing. And another book signing. And then I signed stock for Anderson’s Bookshop (no relation). All in all I signed books for almost five hours today.

Here are the teachers who lined up early at the Simon & Schuster booth. People often ask if I get bored at book signings, or if my hand gets tired. I love them. Honestly. Especially at a conference like this where I meet teachers from all over the country and they tell me how they use my books in their school, and what their students like, and the kinds of books their students are hungry for. It is a real privilege to shake the hands of so many hardworking teachers. And no, my hand does not get tired. All the hours spent typing on this keyboard keep my fingers in good shape.

During one of the signings I sat next to a hero of mine: Lois Lowery!!! I was a total drooling fangirl and she was gentle and gracious.

Tonight I’ll be at a dinner hosted by Penguin and then a party by Simon & Schuster. Tomorrow will be much calmer…. not sure if I’ll sleep, visit workshops, write, or all of the above.