So I’ve been on the road for a week. Things are officially starting to get blurry.
Let me play catch-up quick, before I forget everything.
Day 7 was Monday and Monday was….. checks notes…. Chicago! Right!
Windy City with big shoulders!
(Want to know where that phrase came from? Poet Carl Sandburg’s poem, “Chicago.”)
My Author Nanny in Chicago was Judy, who might look like a mild-mannered knitter, but has the driving skills of Mario Andretti and a photographic memory for bookstores, schools, and the locations of every bathroom in Cook County.
Chicago was three school presentations (Hello Highcrest Middle and King Lab Middle School!), a phone interview,
an internet-radio (I think that’s the right expression) interview with Barnes & Noble (will be on their website next week),
four stock signings,
a quick chat with Laura and Gillian from Booklist and Book Links, and then
an evening trip to the airport, much muttering at the Departure Screen as my flight out of the city was delayed, delayed, and – finally, stepping foot on the soil of Nebraska for the first time in my life. I was picked up at the airport in the middle of the night by terrific Omaha YA librarian Paul Christopherson.
Picture the Tired Author, struggling down the hotel corridor, the wheels on her suitcase gone funky, her backpack slipping off her shoulders, her little mind whining “Why? Why are we still awake? We never stay up this late!”
Tired Author fumbles with her room key, drops it, fumbles again, and finally – finally opens her hotel room door. And the room smells like……
