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February 06, 2008
A Not-So-Secret Event with Secret Garden
This full day ended on a warm note, despite the rain and bluster outside. Secret Garden Books hosted an event for me at the Ballard Public Library which drew yet another set of old friends and many, many new ones.
Christy MacDanold, owner of Secret Garden, graciously introduced me and neither Christy nor I realized she forgot to mention Hattie's Newbery honor. She focused instead on our long friendship, which has included my roping her into doing an annual bookfair at my church and her roping me into helping her move to her current Ballard location.
I loved hearing from one mom in the audience that their mother-daughter book club had read Hattie and that it was their favorite of all the historical fiction they'd read in several years! (You could just see my head swell up!) The cozy setting was quite conducive for a lively and friendly conversation about my research, my writing process and even about a possible sequel (is my editor putting these people up to asking this question?!). A real treat was meeting a young woman whose mom is a Schillinger -- a Vida pioneer family. In fact, her aunt is even named Perrilea (spelled differently than my Perilee, but after the same person we decided). Now, what are the odds of meeting someone with Vida, Montana roots way out in Snoose Junction? (that's what we locals call Ballard, which used to be the Scandanavian enclave in Seattle)
I'm taking a little break -- heading to Milwaukee in the morning for the Wisconsin Reading Association conference -- and then I'll be back for the final act of the Hattie paperback tour: a stop at Villa Academy in Seattle, sponsored by the University of Washington bookstore and then an evening reading at the store. There is still a bit more travel on the horizon and though I love traveling and meeting new booksellers and visiting schools, I am very much looking forward to a bit of time at home.
I definitely need to get reacquainted with my husband and my work in progress.
Not necessarily in that order!
Posted by kirby at February 6, 2008 09:20 PM
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