My trip to Texas and the TLA conference

On Monday I woke up very early. As in, 3:00 am early, in order to catch a 6 a.m. flight to Dallas, Texas. I made it to Dallas just fine, it was the trip to San Antonio from there that got totally messed up and caused me to miss the bookseller event that night, with about 100 independent booksellers in attendance. It was SO disappointing. I could have been stuck at the Austin airport for hours and hours, if not for the kindness of a stranger, so thanks Steve from Omaha for at least getting me out of the airport!

After that frustrating snafu, however, things went well.

The weather was beautiful and I spent most of Tuesday morning walking along the Riverwalk.

Tuesday afternoon I did a panel with Ed. Tech Specialist Michelle Leggett and Librarian Seantele Forman. We talked about connecting students and authors via Skype and I think it went really, really well. Here we are before the talk.

Afterwards, we found a lovely spot along the river and had cool drinks and chips with guacamole. Mmmmm.... I even wore my new cowboy hat.

That evening, I signed Advanced Review Copies of The Bridge from Me to You. During our session, I had mentioned that this book was perfect for Texas, since I call it my small town, big sky, football is king book. I told them I had to do something with all of that love for "Friday Night Lights" that's in my heart. While I signed books, I had quite a few tell me once I mentioned "Friday Night Lights," they just had to come and get my book.

Y'all, clearly, these are my people!!!

I signed alongside Jennifer Ziegler who has an adorable-looking middle grade novel coming out next month (5/27) called Revenge of the Flower Girls. We had a line of enthusiastic librarians and they were all so nice and so many of them said really kind things about me and my books.

As a mid-list author, I think it's easy to feel like there aren't a lot of people who know who you are. These kind, excited librarians reminded me that there are people who know who I am, and to some kids, my books *do* matter. Their comments meant so much to me, and this kindness is one of the main reasons I love the Texas Librarian Conference. They are a great, great group of people.

So here I am in the Scholastic booth, talking and signing:

Here's a picture I snagged off twitter. Author Jennifer Ziegler is on the left, and Sandra Carswell, a librarian who has had me Skype with her school, is between us. It was fun to meet Sandra in person.

Tuesday night, the Scholastic group took us out to dinner along with some fantastic librarians we got to meet and chat with. We went to a place called Biga on the Banks, and the food was SO GOOD. I took a picture of my dessert (because, you know me, it's all about the dessert) but alas, instagram is down and I can't get to it.

On Wednesday, I had an uneventful flight home, thank goodness!!

All in all, a great trip. Thank you, Texas librarians, for being so awesome. Let me tell you something - y'all know how to make an author feel special.

Hope to see you again real soon.

ALA Recap - better late than never!

I know. ALA was a long time ago. By now, in a world where everything is posted on-line as it happens, if you wait a week to post about it, most people have forgotten about it. But I did this crazy thing after ALA. I took a vacation! A real, honest-to-goodness vacation. I did have my computer, but blogging during vacation time did not seem right. After all, when you are in Maui, you should be on beaches like this, not on the computer!

This is part of Black Sand Beach - the morning we were there we had the
place to ourselves. It was awesome!

So, back to ALA! I only did one day, but what a day it was...

Sunday morning, I was up bright and early to get ready for the YALSA coffee klatch. I love this event! Every four minutes, authors go to a different table and talk with a different group of librarians. It's like speed-dating, but with librarians. Cool, right? I did it for the first time at ALA in 2009, in Chicago. I loved hanging out in the green room before hand, where all the authors gathered. I got to meet Sarah Dessen and E. Lockhart that year. And Richard Peck! The green room is a fun place to be, trust me!

I was very disappointed I didn't get to do the green room this year. See, I didn't get to do it because I was late. I was late because I got lost. It sort of traumatized me, honestly. I found myself in a not-so-nice part of Anaheim, because I'd gone in the wrong direction, and when I went into a convenience store and called for a cab, I was told it'd be a 30 minute wait. Knowing that probably meant it'd actually be an hour wait, there was no way I could go that route. There was nothing else to do but hoof it back the way I'd come and then on to the hotel from there.

Hoof it I did. I ran through the streets of Anaheim. Literally. In tears, and in my pink dress. And flip flops I'd put on at the last second, thank goodness, stuffing my wedges in my bag to put on when I arrived. I wouldn't have been able to run if I'd worn my wedges. My prayers were answered when I came upon one of the ALA shuttles running around town. I got on and the driver took us to the convention center. Though the event wasn't at the convention center, but he was so nice and let me off so I could directly get on the bus taking people to the Hyatt. There were only 8-12 librarians on that shuttle, but they were ALL going to the coffee klatch, like me, and they were ALL late, like me! They were the nicest librarians EVER and told me it would be fine. And it was. I got there at 9:10, just as the authors were walking in to be seated.

BIG. SIGH. OF. RELIEF.

I don't know why I'm blogging about this, I told everyone I saw about my traumatic morning, and I'm sure I will not forget it as long as I live.

Okay, on to much more important things than my terrible sense of direction!

Angela Frederick, a librarian from Nashville, TN, snapped this picture of me when I was at her table and shared it on twitter. I happened to notice a couple of Morris award stickers on badges and couldn't help but mention my friend, L.K. Madigan, who won the Morris award a couple of years ago. Turns out Angela was on that particular committee, and got to spend some time with Lisa. So, for a minute, we talked about sweet Lisa. That was just one table of many - the 50 minutes went by in a blink of an eye!

Not sure what I'm saying, but I'm pretty sure I'm thinking
I'm so happy to not be lost anymore.

After the coffee klatch, I met up with the fabulous Jessi Kirby, whose YA novels I LOVE, like whoa! And now I can say I love Jessi as much as her books - so sweet! We walked the exhibit hall for a bit until my dear friend Lindsey Leavitt, arrived. Here we are at Lindsey's signing later that day, at the Disney booth (Lindsey was signing her third PRINCESS FOR HIRE book, A FAREWELL TO CHARMS, which I just finished reading. SO GOOD!).

Does it get more fabulous than this? I think not.
Wait. Unless we could find that adorable Corey Whaley...

Yes, here we are with the Printz award winner, Corey Whaley, who wrote the amazing WHEN THINGS COME BACK. Fortunately we didn't get stuck in those doors when they all slammed shut because of a fire alarm. It was like a scene out of a horror movie, I'm telling you. Amazing someone didn't get hurt.

I was sad I didn't get to hear Corey's Printz speech, which was Monday night, but I believe it will be on-line at some point. He was excited about his speech, not nervous at all. I want to be Corey when I grow up.

I signed books at the S&S booth and people waited in line and bought books in order to get an ARC of my upcoming YA novel, FALLING FOR YOU. THANK YOU to everyone who came to see me!!

Here is a picture of me and Lena (her blog is here) - a sweet blogger from Texas who said she'd waited 3 years to meet me. Yay, we met! And she's awesome.

Wow, Lena, I seem to be squeezing your arm extremely hard.
Hope I didn't leave bruises! I was just so happy to see you!

And next is a picture of me and Kelsey (her blog is here), another awesome YA blogger! 

There were many others, but these were the pictures I saw on twitter, and I know Kelsey and Lena well enough to ask if I could borrow their pictures for my post. I'm so appreciative of everyone who came by to buy books, get ARCs and say hi. Again, thank you!!!!!

She loves cupcakes like me. We look like cupcake lovers, don't we?

I ran into MG authors Sheela Chari and Mike Jung at one point, but alas, I have no pictures of them. I had met Mike before, and I'm super excited about his upcoming MG novel, GEEKS, GIRLS AND SECRET IDENTITIES. It was great to meet Sheela after all these years! VANISHED is the name of her wonderful MG mystery.

Later that day, I met up with a bunch of people for cocktails and got to chat with one of my favorite librarians, Sara Bean Thompson (her blog is here).

CHASING BROOKLYN is a Missouri Gateway award nominee
thanks, in part, to Sara's support! But I liked her even before that. :)

After that, I had dinner with the always sweet and awesome Shannon Messenger, whose books KEEPER OF THE LOST CITIES (MG) and LET THE SKY FALL (YA) are not out yet but are already creating LOTS of buzz. Pretty sure it won't be long and I will have to make an appointment with Shannon's publicist in order to spend time with her. I predict big things for her. Big. Things! Neither of us took a picture, dang it. I'm pretty sure it was because I was starving after running a marathon earlier that morning trying to get to the coffee klatch I was late for.

I only picked up a few ARCs, but I got the one I wanted the most. I teared up as I held it in my hands. Yes, this is the book by Bridget Zinn, a Portland YA-writer friend who lost her battle with cancer last year. I can't wait to read it.

I'll just end this post by saying - thank you YA librarians, for all you do! I'm honored to have spent a day at your conference and to have met so many of you!!

ALA, here I come!

It is no secret that I LOVE librarians and everything they do to promote literature and put books in the hands of readers.

And I have to admit, anytime I get to attend the big librarian conference known as ALA, I am SO HAPPY!

This year, I'll be at ALA in Anaheim on Sunday only. I'm doing the YA coffee klatch in the morning, going from table to table talking to a bunch of librarians in the course of an hour. The first year I did this, I was in the green room before hand with some of my YA heroes like Sarah Dessen, E. Lockhart, Libba Bray, and many others and it was so weird to be there alongside them. I introduced myself to Sarah and said, I'm the one who comments on your blog all the time and loves Friday Night Lights as much as you do. Yeah, when all else fails, talk about a TV show, that's my philosophy.

Even more exciting than the coffee klatch, however, is that I'll be signing Advanced Review Copies (ARCs) of FALLING FOR YOU at 1:00 in the Simon and Schuster booth.

FALLING FOR YOU doesn't come out until January, 2013, so this is a chance for librarians and bloggers to read the book early. Eep! Exciting and kind of anxiety-producing!!

I know at the IRA conference, S&S was doing this thing where you had to buy a previous title for $5.00 and then you'd get the ARC for free. I don't know what they have planned, if they'll do that with THE DAY BEFORE and FALLING FOR YOU, because these things aren't up to me, but I do know that usually there are very few ARCs of my books to be had, so I'm super excited they are offering these up at this conference.

So if you will be at ALA, I hope you'll come and see me! Even if you don't want an ARC, stop by and say hi. I'll have shiny new bookmarks you can have, if you want one or two or ten.

Sunday, June 24th, 1:00, S&S booth - Hope to see you then!

IRA 2012 and School Visit recap

Sunday and Monday I attended the International Reading Association conference in Chicago, IL. The weather was yukky, but when you're so busy with workshops and signings and meeting cool people and eating fabulous food, who needs nice weather anyway?

Sunday was the all-day institute put on by eight incredible authors and me - Carolee Dean, Carolyn Meyer, Caroline Rose Starr, Kersten Hamilton, Kimberly Little Griffiths, Uma Krishnaswani, Esther Hershenhorn and April Wayland. We talked about using the story strategies of professional authors to inspire a love of reading and writing.

Here we are, looking all professional and authorly.

We went out to dinner the night before, where much fun was had, as you can see:

Simon and Schuster took its authors out to dinner Sunday night. I sat near the incredibly talented and kind author/illustrator Peter Reynolds and his brother, Paul. Here is a picture I took, so I'm not in the picture, but you can see Peter and Paul to the right, and that's Carolee on the left. And Carolyn Meyer who turned around just as I was snapping the picture.

Peter drew me this little gem that I plan to frame and place on my desk:

I didn't take many pictures at the convention center on Monday. I signed books for an hour in the S&S booth and met lots of fabulous teachers. I did find Kate Messner, who was there signing a bunch of her books, including her latest release, EYE OF THE STORM:

Of course you can't visit Chicago and not have deep dish pizza, so Carolee, Caroline and I went to Giordano's downtown Monday night and had our selves a fabulous dinner.

Tuesday I went to Blackhawk Middle School where I did three presentations for each of the grades and signed lots of books. It was a great day and the teachers and librarians there are obviously very passionate about reading.

Check out the wall of poems that kids wrote, inspired by one of my books that they read:

There were a whole bunch of sweet thank you notes, too!

And here's the stage lined with welcome posters:

Now, I'm back home, with some work on a manuscript I need to get to. When I'm finished with that, I plan on taking a much-needed break for a few weeks. I'm a very tired author about now...

Happy May!!!

Lisa's Top Five Conference Tips

Since many of us are getting ready to head out to LA for the SCBWI conference, thought I'd share my top five tips for all of you who are going and haven't been before.



1. Try not to be shy!! If you see someone you recognize from on-line, go up and introduce yourself. This is the best part of the conference, meeting people you've only known on-line. And you can even introduce yourself to someone you don't know if you're hanging in the lobby and no one is around you recognize. I know it's hard for us introverts to reach out, but usually, you'll be really glad you did.

2. If your head is swimming by day 3 or 4, it is perfectly acceptable to skip out of a session and hang on the patio or in the lobby, talking to other writers for an hour. Those little sessions talking books, craft, agents and editors (oops - am I not supposed to admit we talk about agents and editors?) can be just as helpful and informative, if not more so, than the conference sessions.

3. If you have a critique scheduled, relax, smile, and go in and listen. Be open to the suggestions your critiquer has. Don't try to defend yourself and why you did something in your story. This is not really about YOU right now. It's about getting your money's worth and getting as much information from that author, editor or agent as possible on how to make your story better. Once the critiquer is done sharing his/her thoughts, have some questions prepared about the story. Is there something you've been on the fence about? Ask! Are you wondering if a certain character is likable? Ask! Curious about market for this kind of book? Ask! First and foremost, be kind and respectful during your session. Kindness goes a really long way. Don't be pushy about submitting your manuscript, if the agent or editor is interested, he/she will let you know.

4. For unpublished writers, I think the tendency can be to go to all of the sessions where editors or agents are speaking. But make sure you go to some craft-oriented ones too. One of the best sessions I ever went to was done by Cecil Castellucci on characters. If you have a weakness or two in your writing and there is a workshop for it, GO!!! It's a great way to learn and improve your writing.

5. Don't drink too much and get lots of rest. Okay, okay, I know - it's not gonna happen. But I had to try, it's the mother in me!

Can't wait to see you!!

TLA - Part 2

Here is proof that I really did a panel with Sonya Sones and Ellen Hopkins. They were both so calm, cool and collected while I, on the otherhand, could not stop shaking. At one point, I went to take a drink of water, while one of them was talking, and it was almost funny how much my hand was shaking. I wonder how many librarians saw that and thought, what is wrong with that girl - does she have a medical condition of some kind? I mean, it was that bad. Oh well. Thankfully, my voice didn't show it (much).



I took a picture of the room with 550 seats a few minutes before we started. Most of the seats ended up being filled, which surprised us, and which also made us very happy.



The Texas Sweethearts (Jessica Lee Anderson (BORDER CROSSING), Jo Whittemore (FRONT PAGE FACE-OFF) and PJ Hoover (THE EMERALD TABLET) serving up some delicious desserts.



And here's me with Jess and PJ at the cocktail party.



You know who else was at that cocktail party? RICK RIORDAN!! Everyone was asking to take a picture with him, and although that would have been fun, I refrained, because the poor guy probably didn't even get a sip of wine with all of that going on. I did snap a picture from afar, however.



We had dinner Thursday night with a bunch of librarians, and I sat across from one of the librarians who was on the TAYSHAS committee and was instrumental in getting FAR FROM YOU on the list. It was a good time, and the margaritas were excellent!



I had fun chatting with teens and librarians during a teen chat on Friday. Here's a group of middle schoolers from a school in San Antonio (Frontier maybe?? I'm terrible with names).



And finally, Jess was kind enough to give me a quick tour on Friday, after we had lunch, when the sun finally came out for awhile. Here I am, in front of the Alamo!



One picture I don't have that I wish I did was of me and Suzanne Collins (THE HUNGER GAMES). We ended up on the Skylink in the Dallas airport together, and there was hardly anyone else there, and so I got brave and introduced myself. We chatted about the conference and traveling, and as much as I wanted to gush about her books and ask questions, I refrained. I attended her presentation at the conference, and a kid asked her if she could go back and change anything, what would it be? She said - oh no, there's something I should change? People laughed, and then she went on to say that even if there was, she's tired. Very tired! And so, I decided to give that tired author a break from those books that fill so much of her time. Still, a very cool five minutes for me!!

So there you have it. A fun, but busy, couple of days. I came home and took more naps this weekend than I can count. And now, I suppose it's time to buckle down and get writing.