New Month - Fresh Start

"A Month that Ends
with Halloween is Special"

I love new months.

Of course, I also love new days, years, decades, centuries, hours, and so on.

It's always the beginning of something. A fresh start.

Today, I've already organized my desk and files, written my goals for the month, eaten all the leftover pumpkin bread, hung new artwork and photos, written 'thank yous' to the wonderful people who made KidLitCon possible this year....

And, I just drew from a hat the winner of September's drawing for "Steal Like an Artist": Jennifer Mead. Jennifer will be receiving her free book in the mail...this week! Woohoo!

Now, to spend the rest of my day completing the new book dummy for "Turtles Can't Race." *One of my big goals for the day.

Have your best October ever! 
I know I will.

KidLitCon 2012

Kidlitosphere Central

What an amazing day!

Today, I was a participant in the 2012 KidLitCon sponsored by Kidlitosphere Central.

KidLitCon is a conference for bloggers who report on the field of children's literature.

As a book lover myself, I couldn't have imagined a more magical day. My morning was spent in Random House, hearing editors sing the praises of their fall and winter book lists for children, middle grade readers, and young adults. The visit was made all the more thrilling by seeing the extensive collection of books that Random House has published over the years.

Grace Lin

My afternoon was spent at HarperCollins. Another delightful set of enthusiastic editors spoke about their exciting new children, middle grade, and young adult book lists.

I can't wait to read many of the books I heard about today.

My evening was spent at a dinner with an inspiring guest speaker, author/illustrator, Grace Lin.

The day was completely magical, because my in-between time was spent talking to book bloggers...aka...book lovers.

It doesn't get much better than this.