New Year, new adventure

Yesterday our older son, Will, headed home to freezing Minnesota, and our younger son, Felix, went back to work (currently making cow proof fences so salamanders won't get squashed.) All the holiday decorations are put away. One last birthday cake to make -- my husband's birthday is tomorrow -- and then life returns to ... well, not normal exactly. To my new adventure.

In a few days I leave for freezing Vermont. (Notice a theme here with the cold?) I've taken a job teaching at Vermont College in the MFA Writing for Children and Young Adults Program. I am incredibly excited. I've never taught in an organized program before, though I've done all the pieces (lectures, critiquing, encouraging, mentoring.) Being used to mild California weather, I sent ahead a box of warmness -- a down quilt, flannel sheets, snow boots and a teapot.

My year started off with a treat. Last summer we had an amazing Boston Globe-Horn Book award evening, with all the winners giving speeches. The Horn Book people have graciously put links to all of them on their site. Here's my Boston Globe-Horn Book speech for Marching for Freedom. It's partly about writing the book, and partly about why I write and what inspires me.

And with a time-consuming new adventure coinciding with a new year, I've come up with a New Year's resolution: prioritize. This is always a weakness with me in the best of times. So with more demands on my time, I'm going to see if I can be more mindful. I've written prioritize on a slip of paper and stuck it to the bottom of my computer screen.

What will you be doing more mindfully this year?

Boston Globe--Horn Book Awards and Simmons College

I'm just back from the Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards. An amazingly festive, celebratory evening. Here are Martha Parravano and Roger Sutton from HB doing last minute prep, in the "green room" aka classroom at Simmons College where the event was held.



My wonderful Viking people took the train up to Boston. That's Catherine Frank, my editor, on the left, RasShahn Johnson-Baker, Manager of Library Marketing, and Regina Hayes, publisher.



Still in the green room. That's Wendy Lamb, editor of Rebecca Stead's incredible novel, When You Reach Me, my awesome agent Ken Wright, and Catherine. We are all pretty excited.



Speech over, happy, happy, happy. That's the beautiful inscribed silver bowl they gave me. Very Boston. I don't think I have proper Bostonian silver bowl showing etiquette down yet. Probably supposed to be more demure.



With the three Martha's. Then off to a celebratory dinner with the Penguin people et all. My thanks to everyone for an unforgetable evening.

Here are several terrific posts on the evening:

School Library Journal and Read Roger at Horn Book.

The next day was the Simmons College Colloquium where I did a presentation of the Google Lit Trip I've done with Jerome Burg on Marching for Freedom. I didn't manage to take any pictures!



Very end of the day at Simmons. This doesn't look like I am happy, happy, happy again, but I am. That's Peter Sis signing a copy of The Dreamer for me, while I sign a copy of Marching for Freedom for him. An amazing moment.



And a delicious dinner with other Boston Globe-Horn Book winners and friends. Thank you Roger Sutton!

Eggs and Awards

Two amazing things happened to me this morning:

1. Hen laid an egg right in my hand. (Yes, this requires patience. Lots.)

2. The Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards were announced. Marching for Freedom won for nonfiction.

Unlike waiting for an egg, which is a very solitary occupation (believe me, Hen wishes it were a little more solitary), winning an award like this is because many, many people worked incredibly hard to pull this book together. I thank the people whom I interviewed for their heartfelt stories, the photographers who took the photos, and all the people at Viking Children's Books.