I'm Baaaaack

Me and some of the divas of children's book illustration!
From Left to Right... Jannie Ho (aka Chicken Girl) Courtney Pippin-Mathur, Leeza Hernandez, Me, and Kim Fleming (aka Lil' Kim) It was so wonderful meeting all of you!!

Wow, what a great weekend in NYC at the SCBWI winter conference! I don't have the patients or the blogging prowess to write everything that happened this weekend but Leeza Hernandez the blogging goddess has already done so for your viewing enjoyment. And she has done a much better job than I ever could. Thank you Leeza!

I was inspired by so many talented speakers like Jerry Pinkney, David Wiesner, and Nicky Grimes. Then occasionally discouraged about the state of the business but then inspired once again by the likes of Susan Patron and Richard Peck. Besides the speakers, it was so comforting to know there are other folks just like me out there. I met many wonderful and generous people that I'm sure will be the next big names in children's books.

I don't have much time but I'd like to share a few things I learned at the SCBWI conference...

1. Chicken Girl does not have feathers.

2. Do not take the E train at rush hour with a ton of luggage. (UGH! I'm sure everyone just LOVED me!)

3. Do not check into a hotel if they already have a guest with the exact same name as yours. Apparently that seriously confuses the folks at the front desk.

4. Be the first in line to have David Wienser to sign your book (the queue looked like the line for Space Mountain!)

5. When staying at a hotel, make sure you are always presentable just in case the fire alarms go off. (There was really a fire too though just a teeny one.)