A little bit of kindness
Friends of Lulu nominated rapunzel's revenge for two awards! There's online voting, if you go for that sort of thing.
I'll be attending the Costume Ball charity event for the South Jordan Community Theatre on Friday. This is a ticketed event to raise money for our local community theater. Tickets are still available, and there will be an auction, including (embarrassingly enough) lunch with...me. Yup. This was not my idea, obviously. There is no good outcome for me. Either it will be embarrassing when nobody bids, or it will be so uncomfortable if someone pays a lot for it and I know I can't possibly be entertaining enough to be worth that amount. So...what the hey, it's for a good cause. And I always say that one of the best exercises for becoming a professional writer is to expose yourself to public humiliation.
So after I lamented my lack of photos at the National Book Festival, kind reader Meredith emailed me some and then gave me her lovely sum-up of the event. With her permission, I'll quote parts:
"I laughed so hard at the Exquisite Corpse reading. You were all so wonderful and funny-- it was one of the best talks I went to all day. Was it the interaction between all of the authors on the stage? Was it because you were all as sleep deprived and caffeine hyped as I was? Or did you seem so funny because I was so sleep deprived and hyped on caffeine? Or was it just the surreal wonderfulness of being surrounded by hundreds of people who loved books enough to brave the weather and connect with authors and other readers? There was a very special energy in the air that day. It seemed like the wonder had been awoken in everyone I looked at-- we were all looking around ourselves, a little amazed. And once people started talking to other people there, sparks of static electricity bounced from tongues and minds. The little zings connected us. Maybe because in one way or another, every person there had been saved by books, the way Kate DiCamillo said that the library saved her. The importance of stories lies in that desperate and beautiful rescue. They restore us not just to safety, but to a place more wonderful than that."
Here's Megan McDonald, Steven Kellogg, Nikki Grimes, Kate DiCamillo, me, and Jon Scieska. I could not stop laughing between Jon and Kate there. And Megan, Steven, and Nikki were just as sweet and cool as you could want them to be.
By the way, Episdoes 1 & 2 are now up at read.gov. A new episode goes up every two weeks. Katherine Patterson is the latest. (The Exquisite Corpse Adventure is supported by the Library of Congress and the National Children's Book and Literacy Alliance and will feature the collaborative work 14 writers and 3 illustrators, including yours truly.)
Here's some more from Meredith:
"When I got in line to get my books signed, I loved how the people in line around me all became a sort of Sisterhood Of Shannon Hale Book Lovers over the hour or so that we stood waiting. Age mattered not-- we were students, teachers, librarians, booksellers and moms all talking on exactly the same level. I listened to a snowy-haired librarian soberly discussing what kind of a person a princess should be with thirteen-year-old girl she had met five minutes before. They had very interesting and earnest ideas on the subject. The members of our Sisterhood could be identified by the fact that they laughed and gushed, traded book recommendations and directions on how to get out of the city at the end of the day, discussed favorite books and most-loved characters, took pictures for each other, and carried bags and books for each other. I used to run the Children's department at Barnes & Noble, and I'm used to being considered just a bit precious by my coworkers for making Kids Lit my field. I wasn't precious in your line. I was perfectly normal. I loved every moment of it.
"There is something very special about book lovers who get together for an event such as that, but I think that there is something particularly special about people who love Children's books. Some of the lines for other, "adult" authors seem to me competitive-- people defended their places in line and were jealous of how many books they could get signed, etc. It wasn't that way at all in the Shannon Hale line. We were all instantly friends, and friends don't quibble about places in line. As a matter of fact, the little knot of de facto friends I was with encouraged a girl to dash off to the Jodi Picolt line just one over just as that line dwindled to its end so that she could get a book signed. We cheered when the line managers let her get in line, and we not only held her place in the Shannon Hale line, but I think we held about half of her other books, as well. The Shannon Hale line manager was amazed by us."
This is just so sweet. I've found it to be true as well that peoplewho love children's books experience a kind of team loyalty. And nothing Ifind more flattering and honoring than to hear that people who like mybooks tend to be kind. Hooray indeed.