Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Dublin Literacy Conference

What a great weekend - immersed in children's literature - surrounded by folks who share a common passion!

The BEST part was meeting all the children's lit bloggers who have become my cyber friends and who are now my REAL friends! I felt like I knew them all before I even met them, but to give them all a real life hug was great.

Mary Lee Hahn took such good care of me - attending to my every need; not falling asleep while sitting through both my programs; being patient with my neurotic worry over technical equipment; being my taxi service; and laughing at at least one of my redneck jokes.

All of the committee members were so friendly and efficient - Franki Sibberson, Bill Prosser, Laura Douce (the other taxi service), Patty Whose-Husband-Is-a-Pilot, Karen Terlecky (thank you so much, Karen, for coming by to meet me!), Megan Germano (my cyber-bud!) and all the others. (Forgive me for leaving out so many!!!!! I left my handout with all the committee members in my hotel room. Duh!)

I got to spend time with authors. What's more fun than that? It was great to hang with Grace Lin. We had fun talking shop and sharing stories - and I'm sure I'll never forget seeing that little bitty girl eat the world's largest cream puff. (Well, okay, she only ate half of the world's largest cream puff, but still....). I also got to see an ARC of Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, which looks fabulous.

I enjoyed meeting newly published author, Amjed Qamar, whose YA book, Beneath My Mother's Feet has been receiving lots of notice.

I also had a blast with Pat Johnson, author of One Child at a Time: Making the Most of Your Time with Struggling Readers.



(l to r) Bill Prosser (Literate Lives), me, Mary Lee Hahn (A Year of Reading)


Me (left) and Megan Germano of Read, Read, Read


Karen Terlecky (Literate Lives) and me


(l to r) Bill, me, Karen


Grace Lin and me

4 comments:

Megan Germano said...

How fun was this? I am so proud and excited that I was a part of this great day! My kids clapped when I showed them your autograph and the kind words you wrote ;) Then I had about 20 kids searching the class library for books by Barbara O'Connor.
Oh yeah, and one kid said... "Of course you were in Dublin, that is were a lot of O'Connor's are since it is Irish." His mother's maiden name is O'Connor.

Karen said...

How fun! Once again two "like" minds think alike -- both writing about the conference on the same day!!
Like Megan, I read your inscriptions in my books to my class yesterday. My stock certainly rose with them! :)

It was so wonderful getting to meet you. It cured my ailments!

Mary Lee said...

There was no falling asleep during your presentations! I loved hearing you talk about how you've found your voice in your writing! I'm so glad you could come. You were a highlight of the conference for lots of us!

Anonymous said...

You didnt include me!!I was there...I introduced you!!


~Unknown