My First Nubs' Signing

The great display at the bookstore

Saturday night was such fun! Thankfully, the thunderstorms abated a bit so the store full of attendees didn't get soaked coming for my first official Nubs' signing event. If you ever have the chance to do an event at Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park, do it! Cheryl McKeon and Judy Hobbs will not only treat you like royalty, they might even bake cookies! Saturday night's were bone shapes. No photos, alas, because they were chomped up so fast.

Winston and I had our first therapy dog training session right before so I was a little flustered getting there and getting things set up. But with the help of friendly audience members (thanks, Bren!) I was soon in business, telling about how Mary and I came to write Nubs. When I read the story aloud, I did hear a few sniffles but thankfully they weren't mine! That was the first time I'd been able to read the story myself without choking up.
Signing away!

The first slide in my presentation was of Mary and me, at ALA this past summer, and I'd captioned it "Two Good Friends." As I looked out over the audience, I realize how many good friends I am blessed with -- parents of my dearest friends from junior high were there, yoga class buddies,
Yoga class buds

writing buddies, friends from our old church, from the Whidbey MFA program, me with Grier Jewell and Stephanie Lile, writers extradordinaire!

from book club talks. . .and friends I hadn't met yet! It was a lovely, lovely evening and another reminder that when two good friends write books together about the power of love and friendship, amazing things can happen.
Some of the long, long line. . . I signed for an hour!
An old, familiar face
Two adorable new Nubs' fans!

One of the features of my talk and signing was partnering with Homeward Pets. Volunteers brought two dogs in need of new homes. I didn't get to meet the other cutie (a chihuahua-corgi mix!) but did cozy up with this charmer. The good news is that by the end of the evening, it looked like both dogs had prospective new homes.

Rocky is the sweetest Pit bull I've ever met. . but he wasn't much for the "pawparazzi"

Eccentric Girl Power!

I've been in a fog here lately so completely missed that Anna at Diary of an Eccentric had posted her interview with Mary and I on her blog!

Click through to The Girl's review of our book -- it'll make you smile!

People Who Need People. . .

Rumor has it that the November 16th issue of People Magazine (hitting the newstands a week before) will feature Major Brian Dennis and Nubs, the subjects of my new book with Mary Nethery.

I've heard rumors that Marie Claire is doing a photo shoot with fashion maven, Mary.



Me? I'll be featured in Popular Skydiving. Sans chute.

(just kidding. Except for the thing in People)

Good as Gold!

We found out a bit ago but weren't allowed to share until the official announcement had been been but Nubs is a Gold Winner of a NAPPA -- National Parenting Publication Awards.

Yay, Nubs!

I double-dog dare you. . .

I'm sure it will come as no surprise to anyone that I love words. And things with words on them. Like this old flash card which is now pinned to my bulletin board:

It reminds me -- the old stick-in-the-mud that I am -- to try to forget for 5 minutes that I am the completely boring old broad that I am, and push the edges of the envelope in some way. Since I am a total coward, that envelope pushing is not likely to come by rock climbing or bungee jumping or even tweeting.

The only place I can be brave is on the page. And even then it is tough going. I still can't believe I had the audacity to recreate life on the eastern Montana prairie in 1918 (yes, Timmy, that WAS before I was born) or more recently, explore life in a Japanese American incarceration camp during WWII. And now, I am slipping on the worn brown oxfords of girls who slogged through the Depression, trying to bring to light the day-to-day of that trying time.

I tremble a bit at the chutzpah needed to shape stories from lifetimes I've never experienced personally. But I draw courage from writers like Karen Cushman and Karen Hesse and Katherine Paterson and Rodman Philbrick and Gary Schmidt and Sarah Miller and Laurie Halse Anderson, all of whom have hoed up stories from the fields of our collective pasts and dared to tell them for contemporary readers.

Tell me about the dares you've taken in your writing. If you're like me, some have worked out and some have been totally flops.

But I hope you celebrate both the successes and the flops because the important thing is that you dared.

I know nothing. . .

So I'm dating myself: is there anyone else out there who watched Hogan's Heroes and remembers that line by the German sergeant, "I hear nothing, I know nothing"?

Well, that's how I feel. The other night at the fabulously organized Inside Story, someone came up to me and asked if I was still teaching. If so, he wanted to sign up for my class.

I said I wasn't teaching, and then added, "The thing is, I don't know anything anymore." I'm sure he thought I was being coy/modest but the sad fact is that I was speaking the truth. The more I walk this writing tightrope, the more I realize how thin the wire we tread.


I can feel things -- like that there should be one more beat in this paragraph, or one less statement of emotion in that paragraph -- but I sure as heck don't KNOW any darned thing.

I so admire writers who are confident of what they know.

I'm just not one of them.

Tune in Wednesday

Maybe the talented illustrator (and now writer, too!), Elizabeth Dulemba, can remember how it happened, but I can't quite recall how we ended up meeting for coffee at the SCBWI annual LA conference a few years back. She's so positive and creative -- it was a pleasure simply to be in her orbit that day -- and we have been email buddies ever since.

Now she's blogging and tomorrow guess-who will interviewed on her blog.