Mommy's Day Out

So due to birthin' babies and other life mid-life "achievements", I haven't traveled for the company in some time. In fact, I think my last out of town "con" was in 2006 when Tatsumiwas a special guest at Comic-Con International. So I jumped at the chance to go to Nashville, to seize upon a generous invitation from Francisca Goldsmith who was the chair of the preconference task force on graphic novels, "Picturing the Story: Teen Readers Get Graphic @ your library" at the very first YALSA Young Adult Literature Symposium ever. It's odd to think that with all of the ALA conferences both national and regional that this was the very first YALSA conference, due to a generous gift from Bill Morris. With over 200 attendees and a waiting list of 80 people just for the preconference, it's safe to assume the preconference was a smashing success.

I met a lot of librarians:This woman is from the Edmonton Public LIbrary who hosted Pascel Blanchet in September.
This is Kimberly Patterson from Lawrence, Kansas and Betsy Levine from Oakland.
One of my favorite things at D+Q is coming across a blog report of how someone checked out one of our books at their local library. This weekend I received notice that the Finger Lakes Library System in NYS has Red Colored Elegy in stock or that the Meriam Library in California did a little write-up of Adrian. So what could be better than actually getting to meet 200 librarians who are interested in the very items that we publish?I was asked to present on the topic of European and North American comics for adults that can be used for older teen readers. Being that AYA by Marguerite and Clement was just awarded the Children's Africana Book Awards for Older Readers in Chicago at almost the same time, all 200 attendees received a free copy of AYA and Paul In the Country.Somehow I found myself on stage making an African continent/country joke, just a few days after the election, and guest speaker Gene Yang said the stations of the cross were a comic, so I think if they never have comic programming at the conference again, we know why. But the librarians loved, loved, loved Gene, so I doubt that will happen. Above is a horrible shot of Gene doing his keynote, my camera batteries soon died soon after.

Since I was down south I did manage to get in some good cooking. I had some hot chicken and catfish at Bolton's.
hot chicken and hot catfish are very hot versions of fried chicken and fish, can you see the heat?and stopped by Arnold's Country Kitchen for the most delicious, cheapest buffet I have ever been lucky enough to come across.So yes, now after blogging about my kids, I am now blogging about food. Next Up, my sewing projects. Oh wait, I did blog that.

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