Obviously, I have a ton going on these days. And a lot of it is out of town fun! One of my favorite things to do is to work with kids in small-group writing workshops, and I am super excited to have the chance to do that in Austin in July, and…
If you have a kid (or act like one, or even just want to come to a cool, short writing workshop), please show up at 2 pm at Beehive Books in Santa Fe on Sunday, August 3rd. I will be there with all sorts of goodies and a fun fairy tale-centric writing workshop. Also, I will read from Nightingale’s Nest, sign books, and answer all your questions.
I promise, it will be wonderful as this miniature Scottish waterfall.
This one is for anyone who lives near Albuquerque, New Mexico, or who knows anyone living near there. Or who feels like driving/flying/hang gliding there for an awesome event. 🙂
On Saturday, August 2, at 10:30 am, I will have the GREAT pleasure of talking about Nightingale’s Nest alongside (the utterly charming and tremendously talented) Kimberley Griffiths Little – who will be launching HER next middle grade book, The Time of the Fireflies. This will be a launch party for the ages. Goodie bags, refreshments, book signing, and PRIZES! (And possibly a creepy, haunted doll or two… Yes, sweet, lovely Kimberley wrote a wonderful book that happens to include one of my greatest fears.)
I cannot express how much I love this woman’s books! Magic, creepy dolls, friends, and family… they’re exquisite.
I think this calls for a double dose of cuteness. How about this:
A puffin AND a baby bunny. Try not to be overwhelmed by the cuteness. I know, I know. Not possible.
So, tell your Albuquerque friends! I promise Kimberley and I will be puffin-and-baby-bunny awesome.
I’m back from my super exciting vacation, and I’ll be checking in EVERY SINGLE DAY this week to tell you about some cool upcoming events where you meet a REAL LIVE AUTHOR (me) and learn valuable skills! Eat valuable cookies! And take home valuable bookmarks!
And I will also show you my amazing vacation photos. Like this one:
Yes, dear readers, I vacationed with puffins, the world’s cutest birds.
After you finish drowning in the cuteness that is puffin, check out the Westbank Library’s upcoming summer writing workshop! If you live in the Austin area and have a kid who wants to write, bring ’em to the library on July 29th at 4:30 p.m. for this:
No fairy tale is safe from an author in search of material! In this hour-long workshop, students will pick apart favorite fairy tales and discover how to twist a classic story into a new work of art. Students will leave with an outline and opening (or more) of their own story, and a head full of ideas for how to “steal from Goldilocks” and get away with it.
I promise it will be FUN and FUNNY and the stories will be as majestic as a puffin.
I’ve missed posting here for a while, so please forgive all the catching up I’ll have to do today! At first, I was absent for good/great reasons…
A trip to Paris with my niece!
A long-awaited trip for the two of us. We left after we ate the last croissants in the city. Paris is delicious.
School visits!
Author posters are so fun! This one was at Rooster Springs Elementary.
You know what never gets old? Seeing kid-made art of my covers.
Library visits!
A writing workshop at the Wimberley Village Library is the perfect way to end the school year.
End of School stuff for my kids!
Funniest end of the year presentation ever: my kid acted out the Black Knight skit from Monty Python’s Spamalot. (He was King Arthur.)
Amazing book launch parties for my friends!
I love Joy Preble and her books so much! Check out her latest, The A-Word, from Soho Press.
Bethany Hegedus’s amazing picture book launch party featured an equally amazing cake by cakellustrator Akiko White!
And even an Indies First! Read-Aloud Storytime day in Houston!
With Kathy Duval, Varsha Bajaj, me and Crystal Allen. So much fun!
Anyway…
I had plans to do an amazing, thought-provoking recap post (or series of posts!) about all of that stuff. Then a giant windstorm whipped through my neighborhood (like a tornado, with wind speeds up to 120+ according to a neighbor with a wind gauge) and did very bad things to my house (trees falling on our AC units, leaks forming in the house, goat shed picked up and removed from the yard!!!) and injured one of our sweet goats. (She is okay! Just a bunch of stitches and now a lot of TLC.)
So I’m writing this in a house with no AC (not a big deal unless you live where I do, where temps in the summer reach “Hades” by noon), waiting for workpeople to come and make the house liveable again.
Consequently, I may not be able to check in here as much over the summer.
But there are big things on the way! In August, I will have a brand new author website! It’s going to be soooo pretty.
And I’m at all sorts of events this summer, including out of state bookstore visits! Here’s a quick list of places that are confirmed. Come see me there! And bring me a popsicle? It’s hot.
I just had one of the most amazing school author visits in the history of school, authors, or visits.
I was invited last year to come to Galindo Elementary in Austin, by the amazing uber-librarian, Diane Collier. They had something special planned for their spring author visit, she explained.
Every fourth and fifth grader in the school was going to get a free copy of the paperback of The Sinister Sweetness of Splendid Academy, courtesy of donations from their PTA and the South Austin Rotary club.
Look, shiny new paperbacks!
I went in one day early to sign the books. Almost 200 of them. It took an hour and a half. I didn’t care, and my hand wasn’t sore. It was happy.
Happiness is signing books for hours. Yes it is!
When I got to the school the next morning, they had reserved my parking space.
The best part? This was the PRINCIPAL’S parking spot! I felt ridiculously fancy.
And when I walked into the library, I was overwhelmed. Two of the fifth grade English classes had read my book in advance, and done all sorts of art displays with them – on character, theme, comparisons to the original fairy tale and a movie version, and more.
There’s no witches? Darn.
I love this.
Also, Ms. Morrigan looks kind of like me in a bad mood.
This poster almost makes me love themes!
How cool is this?
Can you tell I have a librarian crush on this woman? 🙂
The librarian had decorated with candy and cards… and a present for me. 🙂
Note to self: write all future books about food.
Not that I needed a present. But, A PRESENT!!!
And then the kids arrived, dressed like their favorite characters from the book, and carrying pretend and real candy.
I wish I could show you pictures of the cute kids! But privacy, etc. Use your imaginations. 🙂
It was utterly amazing.
I wish every school could have a librarian, a PTA, a community like Galindo’s! Visiting there was a dream come true for me.
A dream full of books and wonderful librarians.
And the amazingness doesn’t stop there. Because, as you can see in this picture Diane sent me that she took the day after the event, the school got very quiet… because kids were reading, reading, reading.
A dream come true.
Thank you, Galindo Elementary, for letting me meet your dreamers!
I just came back from the Houston Writer’s Guild Annual Conference. It was wonderful. I shocked everyone in the morning with my hilariously inappropriate keynote (and can I say, thank goodness the audio recording was turned off? Now the rest of the world will have to imagine how inappropriate I got.), and then did a query workshop in the afternoon.
A selfie from the evening party, me with HWG President Pamela Hutchins. She’s a bundle of energy!
And, as promised, here’s some of the text to the starred review for NEST from the Bulletin for the Center for Children’s Books! And a link to it, if you’re curious. 🙂
Magical realism meets coming of age in this sensitive and haunting novel, with the relentless, eroding effects of family tragedy in full relief. Sympathetic but not saccharine, Loftin’s portrayal of Little John, with his tremendous sense of responsibility and his unflagging feeling of guilt, as well as his need for love and acceptance, will resonate with readers who carry life’s burdens. The otherworldly Gayle will captivate their imaginations as she flutters in and out of reach … but it’s Little John who will capture their hearts. Read this aloud and have both boys and girls alike utterly enraptured.
UTTERLY ENRAPTURED, do you hear? Oh my gosh, I’m gonna go faint now.
Oh, the wonder that is the Texas Library Association’s mammoth annual conference! I only had two days there this week (due to other conferences I will blog about soon, which were also superb), but in those two days I lived a lifetime.
Okay, well I picked up enough books to LAST a lifetime anyway. 🙂 And met some amazing people, and saw some dear friends. Here’s a string of pictures, in case you are curious as to who exactly goes to these things…
Debut YA author Sara Kocek signing her wonderful book!
I snagged an ARC of Varian Johnson’s new MG, The Great Green Heist!
I attempted to take a respectable selfie of me and author/illustrator Don Tate, but Kari Anne Holt and Ruth McNally Barshaw photobombed us.
The utterly lovely Cynthia Leitich Smith busy at one of her signings!
A new friend! Author of Fat Angie, e. E. Charlton-Trujillo.
Oh, the company I keep! Here’s a quick snap of the panel I sat on: Deb Caletti, Leila Howland, Jennifer E. Smith, and Elizabeth Eulberg. They were wonderful!
Fun! I got to meet an agent-sister, Cora Carmack, who writes the spiciness. 🙂
Victoria Scott and Greg Leitich Smith signing at the Texas Book Festivals booth.
I snagged a copy of Bethany Hegedus’ newest, Grandfather Gandhi. So good…
A very blurry picture, as we were at fancy schmancy dinner – but here is the truly gifted author Jacqueline Woodson. A highlight of the week was spending time with her.
And the most fun aprt of all? Spending time with rock star librarians like Diane Collier! Oh, the conversations we had, the jokes we made, the blisters we wore on our heels hiking around the convention center for days…
And that was my two-day TLA recap in photos! It was a great week. Speaking of which, I should probably go write up a post about that other starred review now…
I’m sort of overwhelmed at the number of Nikki’s Favorite Authors who will be there, and it is ALL I can do not to take a suitcase full of books to get signed by them. But I have to remember, I am technically one of the fancy people at this, and I have to act cool.
Oh, wow, I wish I knew how to be even slightly cool.
Even more challenging (considering my lack of coolness) will be the Texas Library Association’s annual meeting (also in San Antonio), that same week! If you’re there, you can find me signing books in the exhibit hall on Thursday, April 10, with a panel appearance at 2 pm. (I’m also going to some Very Fancy Dinners, and I MUST remember my table manners. Thank goodness for the Texas YA Round Table’s margarita night. I never have to remind myself which fork goes with nachos.)
And then…. the super fun begins. That very Saturday, April 12 (MY BIRTHDAY BY THE WAY), I will be the keynote speaker at one of my favorite places in Texas – the Houston Writers’ Guild Annual Conference!
I have prepared a speech that will have people laughing so hard – at me – that certain necessary bodily functions may be compromised. As you all know, I have no shame. Attendees of this conference will find out exactly how little shame that is, when I read from my very earliest drafts of… Azrael’s Redemption, an unfinished novel about a Scottish lass and a fallen angel who, um… can’t get it up. And I’m not talking about flying here.
It is some of the worst writing in the history of words. (And also, given his “problem,” lacking a crucial aspect of that thing steamy romances are pretty much required to have.)
I’m also teaching a 45 minute query workshop there, so if you’re getting close to sending something to an agent or editor – or even writing back cover copy for your book – you should probably be there as well!
Some very lovely news regarding reviews for Nightingale’s Nest is about to come out, so I’ll post back in a day or three when I can share. Until then? I’m writing again, strangely NOT on my middle grade WIP! Up until midnight last night, swept away by the gruesome YA I started last year. I’m ready to finish it! Or it’s ready. I think it will be strange, and frightening, and very, very different from my other books. But the story has captivated me again, and I must finish it. MUST.
Okay y’all, so I’m doing this really cool thing (way too cool for old-fashioned me) this Tuesday afternoon, from 4-5 pm CDT, over at the Penguin Young Authors Early Word page! I’ll be joining superstars Lisa Von Drasek and Nora Rawlinson for a chat about any and all Nightingale’s Nest-related things. It’s a chat for librarians, so this invitation is for those folks. (But aren’t we all librarians, deep in our darkest fantasies? I know I am.)
Okay, the truth is? I’ll probably answer ANY questions you/they throw at me. So, if you feel you are a librarian, and you feel it would be fun to ask me awkward questions, or even just normal ones, please show up! I will love you forever, in my deep librarian-soul.
