Home Again, Home Again

I've been a very bad blogger lately, but I have a good excuse.

Road Trip!

I spoke at my local SCBWI in August on a panel with two other illustrators (Sue Ward and Alan Stacy). Nice way to get my public speaking feet wet.

I spent most of October visiting bookstores around Texas on the Read It - Write It tour (Anastasia Suen, Dotti Enderle, Shirley Duke, Willy Welch, Kim Morris, Diane Roberts, Chris Ford, and me). It was a great experience, and I highly recommend a group book tour for promotion. It takes a lot of the pressure off when you're speaking in a group.

My favorite part of the book tour was bonding with the other authors and meeting booksellers. It's nice to hear how your book is doing directly from the sellers. It was a perfect time for me to be talking about Ghost Eats It All! right there at Halloween.

On Halloween day, I got to hang with a couple of awesome librarians at the Grapevine library (Hi Leigh! Hi Darla!) and read Ghost during both story-times. I learned a lot about reading to groups of children from these two professionals (and their puppet pals).

I also led an illustration workshop at the San Antonio SCBWI conference in November. This was the one I was most nervous about, but it went really well, and I had a great time.

I'm very happy to have all that public appearance/speaking experience under my belt now. And I'm even happier to be back home.

Comments

[Barbara Johansen Newman]

Janee, I have really missed your blogging!!! SO glad you are back in the groove!

[Liz]

Good girl- you blogged!! Sounds like you're getting some good speaking experiences under your belt-excellent! You'll be needing that skill for years to come!

[June :¬)]

I missed your blogging too. So glad to have you back... but what great reasons for the quiet blog.

[violetismycolor]

So glad to see you back. A book tour...how exciting and scary all at the same time. Welcome home.

[patricia]

Welcome back!! We missed you!! Please update us on all your creative adventures...