My travels

My long weekend in Pennsylvania has drawn to a close, and it’s time to return to the daily grind, but I wanted to give you a quick recap on my fun weekend. I dragged my boyfriend along with me for this trip since it was part work and part fun, though I enjoyed all the work I was doing on this trip. The first stop was the Bradford County Library on Thursday night, where I had a great time talking to and meeting some fellow writers, book lovers and creative types. Then it was on to Wellsboro, PA where we were staying. Wellsboro is a really cool old fashioned town that includes gaslit streetlights. We stayed at the Penn Wells Hotel which dates back to the 1800s and makes you feel like you have ventured back in time even if it does have modern conveniences like...

Hi, how have you been? I realized it’s been awhile since I posted anything, but I have a good excuse. (Don’t I always?) So, far October has been a crazy month and this week will be no exception. Things started off with a bang with the awesome and amazing Collingswood Book Festival, where I had a great time hanging out with my fellow KidLit Authors Club Members. The following day I fought my way through Iron Man traffic to get to the library volunteer luncheon. Though, as someone pointed out, they should have considered renaming this particular race the Tin Man, since the triathlon became a biathlon thanks to the Delaware River being too high. After that I was off to State College, PA for the PA Library Association annual conference. In addition to...

You know how when you go to an amusement park and they have one of those crazy roller coaster with all the loops and giant drop-offs and such (which I do not go on, by the way) and you can get one of those t-shirts that says “I SURVIVED THE MONSTER SCORPION AVALANCHE!”? I’m thinking that some enterprising individual needs to make a souvenir t-shirt like that for the state of Maine. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think I’ve ever gone on a trip to the Pine Tree State that hasn’t been a true adventure and left me with that well-at-least-I-survived feeling. I’ve been to Maine a lot, and even lived there for a short period of time but there’s always a bit of dread that I experience each time I am headed up that...

So, I’m back home from my camping trip and still feel refreshed and recharged. The rain did make things a little bit damper than normal, but we survived just fine. Rain got us Friday after we had set everything up and the tarp we set up under the tent wasn’t quite enough to keep the sleeping bags and pillow dry. So, sleeping conditions were a big soggy on Friday night, but we dried out just fine. We had plenty of great outdoor weather, and being disconnected from the rest of the world were not aware of the dire weather predictions for Sunday night. We were actually taking a little tour at the astronomical observatory at the park when we learned that a monster storm was headed our way with all sorts of rain and hail predicted. When the other woman at...

I’m doing some vicarious traveling this evening. The theme for tonight’s storytime is vacation. I have some old favorites as well as some new to me picture books in my storytime bag. I’m also bringing some paper airplane templates so that we can make some after our stories are done. As I write this my parents are down at Disney World with the grandkids along with my sister and brother-in-law. (I’m curious to see if everyone will still be on speaking terms by week’s end.) Even as late as an hour or so before they left my father told me it wasn’t too late for me to change my mind and join them. I decided not to take him up on that offer. My dad is the sort of person who vacations with organized file folders detailing his itinerary...

This weekend I stepped out of the editing cave for a bit to film some footage for the trailer for my second novel. The book is called Ferocity Summer, and it’s scheduled to be published by Flux next summer. In case you couldn’t tell by the title, the book takes place during the summer. It also happens to be set in the town where I spent my teenage years, Byram Township, NJ. So, with my trusty cinematographer/boyfriend in tow, I headed out on Saturday to my old stomping grounds. The weather wasn’t completely cooperative, and after about the third or fourth sudden u-turn I made my cinematographer was looking a bit green with carsickness. Still, I think we got a decent amount of footage, which one of these days I should be able to turn into a book...