I've been busy getting ready for the Rutgers One on One Conference this Saturday in between attending my daughter's high school field hockey games. Go Chiefs!

http://www.ruccl.org

I'm looking forward to that_ghost_girl staying at my house and I can't wait to meet the many other writers traveling from near and far to attend. lisamullarkey is kind enough to be hosting a get together for all of us the night before. Thanks Lisa!

My husband is running for town council. I wonder how many people will notice my last name plastered all over town:)

"It's where you want to read."

We had awesome weather and an awesome time.



I had the pleasure of sitting next to these lovely ladies, Tina Overman and Wendy Pfeffer.




I also had the pleasure of getting to know Dr. Vanita Braver.






And I got to look at this beautiful clock all day:



How nancyv and I missed each other, we may never know!

But I was able to catch up with my good friend Marcie Aboff:

I'm thankful for still having a job during this difficult time.

I'm thankful to be attending the Collingswood Book Festival on Saturday.

I'm thankful for winning our softball game tonight even though my contribution was nearly zero.

I'm thankful it didn't rain today.

And I'm especially thankful that tomorrow is Friday.

I'm thankful for this wonderful review of My First Pet Bilingual series from the SLJ Blog. The link may only work if you copy and paste it. Be sure to scroll down to see the letters the kids wrote. They are all adorable and some are especially funny. You'll see what I mean.


http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/830000283/post/1710033371.html?nid=3368

What a beautiful warm day (okay it was hot) we had at the Princeton Children's Book Festival last weekend.





Me


Lisa Mullarkey



Marcie Aboff



Sarah Beth Durst and Me



Kids getting their tatoos

I can't wait to read my signed copy of nancy_v book Samantha Hansen Has Rocks in Her Head. I can't find my signed rock!

I am thankful that


My First Pet Bilingual series


has arrived


just in time


for fall book festivals!

Here's the lineup for the conference. I can't wait to find out who my mentor is!

2008 One-on-One Plus Conference


Saturday, October 18, 2008
Busch Campus Center, Piscataway, NJ



PROGRAM

9:30 a.m. Mentor breakfast

Mentee registration, continental breakfast, and . . .
A One-on-One Success Story: Kay Winters, Author

10:15 Welcome: Vivian Grey, Author and Council Chair

10:30 -11:15 One-on-One Sessions

11:15 -11:30 Break

11:30 -12:30 Panel: "What Really Goes on: Your book, from Manuscript to the Bookstores "

Panelists: Chad Beckerman, Art Director, Harry N. Abrams, Inc.; Alexandra Cooper, Editor, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers; Molly O'Neill, Assistant Editor, Bowen Books/Harper; Lisa Sandell, Author and Senior Editor, Orchard Books/Scholastic.

Council Member, Alyssa Eisner Henkin , Agent,
Trident Media Group, will moderate.

12:30 -12:45 Break

12:45 -1:30 Lunch with the Editors

1:45 -2:30 Five-on-Five Sessions

2:45 Featured Speaker: Award-Winning Author, KL Going "Writing Across the Lines"



3:45 Closing remarks: Brian Schatell
Author/Illustrator and Conference Co-Chair

Conference concludes

I've been eyeing this book journal at Borders and I finally decided to just buy it. I don't know about you but I am constantly writing the names of books and authors that I want to check out on random pieces of paper that I ultimately lose. So, I'm hoping this will help me keep them all in one place so when I go to the bookstore or the library I can just grab the journal. It has little pockets in the front and back cover. So, I can stuff the little pockets with little pieces of random paper.
Happy Friday!

I was excited to able to attend one last ballgame at the old Yankee Stadium.



And when they say the new stadium is right next door it really is. You can see it from the old stadium. It's that white building in the background.
It was a fun night, but unfortunately there wasn't a rock in sight for me to take home. A piece of the turf was a little out of my ballpark!

So I took my daughter to the midnight release of Breaking Dawn. Kudos to Borders for a very organized event.

The costume contest.



The lucky raffle winner of the first copy anxiously awaits the opening of the box.



The girls scream as the first copy is taken from the box.



And this lucky girl, my daughter, got to take home a box. We were among the first 25 in line and everyone was asking to keep a box so they had to stop giving them away since there were ten books to every one box. She was lucky enough to snag the last one before they stopped.

She plans on staying up all night to read it. I'm excited to see her so excited about a book!

Me riding my horse Desante at a beautiful ranch in Sedona.



We went on a two-hour trail ride and the landscape was beautiful. It was very different than our trail rides in New Jersey and our three ranch hands taught us so much about how they break these horses.

We leave for home tomorrow. I wonder what the airport will think about all the rocks I have stowed in my luggage!

I'm a few days behind because our hotel at the Grand Canyon didn't have internet service.

Swimming in Lake Havasu. We rented a boat and spent the afternoon on and in the lake.



One of my favorite pics - The London Bridge at Lake Havasu City, AZ



It's hard to pick just one picture of the Grand Canyon.







Here's the rainbow we saw on our jeep tour in Sedona today. Isn't it beautiful.

All this sightseeing and interesting facts about Arizona has all kinds of stories running through my mind.

We visited the Hoover Dam and Las Vegas today!



The Hoover Dam



Gondola Ride in Las Vegas

It's hot but it's beautiful here.

I'm in Arizona on vacation. I'm holding rocks I collected from our property in Kingman.


This is the road to the property.

Oatman, AZ (AKA The Twilight Zone)


Cattle on Route 66 in Oatman




Beautiful scenery here.

I stayed up late last night packing a folder full of writing work for the plane. This morning I decided to leave it all home. I'm officially on a writing break and and on a reading and picture taking frenzy.

Here are some photos from the NJSCBWI conference. Having a two day conference was fun but tiring.


Me and Jerry Spinelli



Me and Eileen Spinelli

It was so wonderful to meet Jerry and Eileen. I can't even begin to tell you what nice people they are. Listening to them speak was inspiring to say the least.

It was great to be with so many of my writer friends and to meet so many new ones.



Me and Lisa sneak a quick photo (and we're not in Taco Bell!)



Lyn, myself and Rachelle

Nancy and her K28 panel gave wonderful tips on marketing. Sorry I had to skip out early to perform my volunteer duties but hopefully I didn't miss much.

It was wonderful to meet so many new people as well. My Friday night critique group did an outstanding job giving feedback on my not-so-outstanding manuscript.

And I can't wait to get my hands on all the books that were discussed over lunch and dinner. Don't you just love it when someone recommends a good book!

My elementary school science teacher taught me not very much I was interested in. Science was not my thing. Even back then, I loved reading and writing. I could care less about Science, History or Math.

I can't wait to read Nancy V's new book. I must confess I have an obsession with rocks and collect them everywhere I go. I do have to hide them in the car because if the family finds them first they try to remove them.

You rock Nancy!

Move over, Ramona Quimby…
Samantha Hansen is ready to ROCK!
Look for Nancy Viau’s middle-grade novel, Samantha Hansen Has Rocks in Her Head, this September. Get your signed ARC at BEA or ALA this summer! http://www.nancyviau.com
http://www.classof2k8.com

So next time I go into NYC someone has to come with me. I'm way too aware of the people around me when I go alone. I even start acting wacky myself. This time I actually followed people so I could get pictures on my cell phone and I journaled. Here's my NYC observations:
People...close your umbrellas in NYC when it's not raining. You're knocking people in the head with your umbrellas.
I followed this man carrying a large manila envelope. I was sure it was a manuscript of his new YA novel. He was searching for an editor on the street to buy dinner for in hopes the editor would ask to see what is in the envelope.



I spied a lady with green running shoes jogging down 8th Avenue. Of course I had to jog after her to get this picture of her cool shoes:


And then there's the guy with the bushy hair sporting the polka-dot Jansport backpack. He's a little blurry, I know, I think because he was trying to run away from me.



On the way back to the train station there are a million people walking their dogs and one stops right in the middle of the sidewalk and pees. It happened so fast I didn't have time to take a picture.

So at the train station I see the woman with the fold-up bicycle. I can't help but think she looks like the same lady who made the train make an emergency stop during one of my previous trips into the city. How many people have fold-up bikes? Luckily, she's not getting on the same train as me this time.

I search for a seat since my train isn't arriving for another 20 minutes. The man with the bushy hair and polka-dot backpack walks by.

Anyway, that's my NYC photo journal for Tuesday, May 20th. Oh, and the SCBWI Metro NY Professional series...fun as always.

The Children's Choice Book Awards were announced last night at the Children's Book Council's Gala.
The Children's Book Council publishes a yearly list of its top children's titles entitled Children's Choices for 2008. Approximately 2,500 children read entries at five different locations and voted on their favorite titles. The award is a cooperative project of the International Reading Association and the Children's Book Council. Please visit the website link below to see the official announcement:

http://www.cbcbooks.org/cbweek/gala2.html


Congratulations to the winners!

I used my Borders 40% off coupon and bought Stephenie Meyer's book, The Host. It's really for my daughter but she'll probably finish it by the end of the night:) I'm still reading Twilight anyway.

I had the pleasure of attending the SCBWI NY Metro series on Tuesday evening. I'm grateful that I live in close proximity to NYC for many reasons, this being just one of them. Tracy Cantor from Walker did a great job speaking about writing picture books but she also brought great examples of manuscripts before and after revisions. I can't wait to go back next month.

I had the pleasure of meeting author Laurence Pringle who was doing an author visit here in New Jersey. It was fun to hear another nonfiction author speak. I appreciate the time he took to meet with me before his presentation.

During author visits the kids ask many questions. One of them being, what is your favorite part of being an author. For me, that's a difficult question, because I love every aspect of being an author. Another question I was recently asked was, if I wasn't a writer what would I be? Since I'm reading A New Earth my first thought is, I would still be "me." But what I would probably say is I've always thought being a detective would fun. I loved reading Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys as a kid. While doing research for my latest project I realized I am a detective when writing my nonfiction. That's probably why I love the research stage of my books. When the puzzle is about to fit together but you need to find that one last piece of information or detail you've been searching for, it takes a bit of detective work. You email witnesses that you think can help or point you in the direction of someone who can help. There are no maybe's in nonfiction, you need proof and circumstantial evidence that what you're writing is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God! Look out Nancy Drew here I come!

I was just saying how much I could use one day off to catch up and here it is the perfect snow day! Thanks work for giving me the day off especially since I have a sick kid at home. The dogs are barking in my head so I hope to get some more work done for my police dog book. I started "A New Earth" yesterday so I hope to read some more today. Anyone else taking Oprah's online class? I think I'll also take some time today and reply to some great questions I received in student's letters from my recent author visit. At some point I'll take a break and shovel some snow so maybe I'll have photo to add later. Got to go before the day flies by!

I finally found a blackboard that I liked for my office and then I finally hung it up after it being propped up against my desk for weeks. And finally, I bought chalk and an eraser so I could actually use it. Seems my family likes it as much as I do, as you can see by the notes and the lottery tickets! Anyone have any great office supplies you just love? I saw a set of book ends this weekend that I need to find a place for.

From Publisher's Weekly's Children's Bookshelf (If you don't already receive this email newsletter, I highly recommend it):


'Dawn' to Break August 2

Breaking Dawn, the fourth and final novel in Stephenie Meyer's hugely successful Twilight saga, will be released at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday, August 2. The book will be priced at $22.99; no print run has been set yet by its publisher, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. To date, the three previous Twilight titles have more than 5.5 million copies in print worldwide. The cover art for Breaking Dawn will be revealed in the Eclipse Special Edition, which goes on sale May 31; that edition will also contain the new book's first chapter. Since the announcement, Breaking Dawn has risen to #7 on barnesandnoble.com and #17 on Amazon.

Has anyone read this series? My daughter just finished reading the first book in three days! She actually left the dinner table last night, claiming her pizza was too hot, and I found her in the other room reading the book. She took it everywhere she went and did not put it down for three days. She left her computer, ipod, and even Guitar Hero until she finished it. It's been a long time since I've seen her so attached to a book. She's borrowing them from a friend but insists she wants to buy them all so she can read them again! So, needless to say, she is very excited about the release of the fourth book.
She's not giving me much information because she said I have to read them myself.