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April 24, 2008
Oldbery Reunion
I love SCBWI conferences, especially those put on by our dream team Co-Regional Advisors, Sara Easterly and Jolie Stekly (with a little help from their friends), so I'm excited to pack my jammies and power point presentations and head over to the Silver Cloud in Bellevue, Washington tomorrow for the Western Washington SCBWI spring conference. It's going to be a full weekend, with keynotes and presentations by great book people like Bonny Becker (hope you've had a chance to read her perfectly charming A Visitor for Bear), Margaret Chodos-Irvine (our own local Caldecott Honor winner), Chris Crutcher (whose Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes is still one of my favorite novels), Jim Di Bartolo (all-round nice guy and fab illustrator), Meg Lippert (reteller of a rich range of folk tales), Laura McGee Kvasnosky (Theodore Geisel Award winner), Joni Sensel (check out Joni's latest, The Humming of Numbers), Laini Taylor (fantasy writer supreme and queen of fun hair color) and Mo Willems of Knuffle Bunny fame.
I'll also get to hang with the queen of Kid's Lit Drink Night (and assorted other accomplishments), Betsy Bird; not-so-secret agents Stephen Barbara, Kate Schafer, Rosemary Stimola and Marcia Wernick; and editors/art directors supreme Liesa Abrams, Jessica Garrison, Nina Hess, Arthur Levine (a good friend of a boy-wizard named Harry), Laurent Linn, Gary Luke, and Randi Rivers.
Whew! If those people weren't reason enough to be so excited I can't sleep, get this: this weekend, I will get to reune (it's a word according to today's NY Times crossword puzzle) with Cynthia Lord and Susan Patron -- two thirds of my Newbery posse. I guess we're technically Oldbery's but you get the idea. I'm so sad Jennifer Holm couldn't make the trip but I know she'll be with us in spirit. If you're coming to the conference, be sure to listen in to the Newbery panel where Betsy Bird asks us all about "the call" and maybe even about the "catcalls" regarding a certain word in Susan's wonderful book.
I'm so pumped!
Just hope I remember my toothbrush.
Posted by kirby at April 24, 2008 11:39 AM
Comments
We're excited to host you, Kirby! You're right... it's going to be an AWESOME weekend!
Posted by: Sara at April 25, 2008 07:09 AM
HEY! YOU'RE pretty all-around nice and fab too! GREAT seeing you again Kirby & if we manage to plan a visit your way over the summer we'd LOVE to see you!
Hope you're doing great!
Warmly,
Jim
Posted by: Jim Di Bartolo at May 8, 2008 02:10 PM