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Showing posts from February, 2013

Banner Week

It was a great week. I was able to find writing time five days in a row! No, wait, maybe you didn't see that : FIVE DAYS IN A ROW. (This is not something my other commitments make possible all that often.) It was better than Christmas. With chocolate. And bourbon. My new project is based on an idea that has been brewing for almost twenty years... odd, but true. Now I am finding it hard to do things like drive because I'm so fired up. In the meantime, I also submitted a few chapters of The One the Empress Hunts to the PNWA literary contest, received a couple of hopeful emails from potential agents (knocking on wood ***), and bought tickets for New York City in April. Small victories, deep breath.

Schrefer, Potlatch, Foolscap, Pearl

Lots happening! First, the wonderful Eliot Schrefer visited Seattle and gave a presentation at the school where I teach. It was awesome. My kids are now fascinated with bonobos, more knowledgable about the Congo, and more inspired to write and read. All good things. Eliot was also kind enough to sit with me for a while and discuss the writerly life. The good, the troubling, and how it all clicks into place, or doesn't. It isn't often that I get to have an extended conversation with another writer, one-on-one. My soul was refueled. Eliot's book, Endangered , was a finalist for the National Book Award for YA. If you haven't read it, do. It is smart, important, and exciting. Then yesterday I ventured to my first convention! Technically, it was two cons in one: Potlatch  &  Foolscap . Both are smallish fantasy/sci-fi fan gatherings in Redmond and this year the two groups decided to share a weekend. I could only attend a tiny portion, because I'm a mom of sm