HUGE CONGRATULATIONS to all the winners yesterday at
ALA!!! Love the awards week!
Every year as the award announcements get closer, I get so excited to hear who the winners are going to be. I was partly surprised and partly not. Like every year. Hope everyone is celebrating!!!
My itsy bitsy, teeny, weeny good news:
Carolee Dean and
Kersten Hamliton and
Lois Ruby and I had our Panel Proposal for the
New Mexico Library Association accepted. Look for us at the Convention center in Albuquerque on April 23rd. I think we've been invited to the evening reception, too. And book signings, but I need to double check. More info as it comes down the pipeline . . .
I finished reading the adult novel,
THE HERETIC'S DAUGHTER, last weekend. It's told from the POV of a 10 year old girl in 1692 during the Salem Witch trials. The author, Kathleen Kent, spent 5 years researching and writing the novel - and it's based on the life of her great, great, great grandmother Martha Carrier who was hung for witchcraft. WOW. I've never read such a raw, detailed book about those times and the things that led up to the witch trials. I felt like I WAS THERE, experiencing and living it myself. Chilling and beautifully wrought. (And I had no idea they actually arrested children and they were in prison for months at a time! Horrible.)
One of my girlfriend's mother died unexpectedly a few days ago (even at the age of 86) and after taking care of her mother for more than 10 years, she is very lost and feeling alone. R. isn't married, has no children and it was a "Mom and me" situation for the two of them for a very long time. The house is empty, she can't sleep, and the memorial is now over. Her siblings are scattered and the sister closet by geography is a bit, um, crazy, vindictive, and an alcoholic - so not much comfort. So I'm making awesome cinnamon rolls (a new fab recipe I recently acquired) and picking up Sobe drinks and taking them down to her house. We're going to eat, drink, get fat, hug, cry, talk and laugh. Like usual.
Savor life's moments. Savor your writing today. Savor your family and friends.
speech-language
pathologist. Her first novel, Comfort,was nominated as a Best Book for
Young Adults, was named the Best YA Novel of 2002 by the Texas Institute
of Letters, and was on the TAYSHAS (Texas Library Association) reading
list. She conducts teacher trainings on inspiring reluctant writers
including "The Secret Language of Stories" and "Random 
Acts of Haiku." 
workshop and has been a speaker at many conferences. 
