Back From Beyond (and Giveaway Winners)

Hi, everyone, it’s me, your absentee blogger. I’m sorry I’ve been neglecting this place of late (I know I’ve owed folks more on the “nice guy” thing for, like, weeks) but I’ve been so busy! Florida, St. Louis, New York City, the KidLitCon — and then revisions, revisions revisions! It’s been a whirlwind.

For instance, this weekend I spent all day Saturday (from about 6 AM to 10 PM) at the KidLitCon here in DC. I attended panels on how authors, bloggers and publishers can work together, a panel on the new FTC guidelines work (and “guidelines” is really the appropriate word here, because the takeaway message I got from the very nice FTC rep was that everyone needed to chill out), and got to hang out with some amazing authors, including Laurel Snyder, Amanda Brice, Caroline Hickey, Pam Bachorz, Paula Chase Hyman, and Varian Johnson.

Varian Johnson, me, and Paula Chase-Hyman at “Meet the Author” at KidLitCon

On top of that, I met some amazing librarians whose blogs I totally intended to come straight home and check out… except:

My train to New York City left at 7 AM the next morning. Yikes.

So, after sleeping all the way to New York, I arrived, checked into my hotel (Luggage = one tiny suitcase and one enormous bag of killer unicorn cookies) and betook myself downtown to Books of Wonder. The other authors at the signing included John Connolly, Marissa Doyle, John Hulme, Daniel Kirk, Sara Beth Durst, Dan Poblocki, and Michael Wexler — and I am now the proud possessor of all their books.

Also at the signing: my editor, Sharonluvscats (in her awesome unicorn jacket!), Cassandra Yorgey, my uncle Tom (who drove down from Buffalo to see me!), a whole bunch of my college friends, and Mitali’s dad.

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO BRAVED THE CRAPPY WEATHER AND CAME!

Sharon’s AWESOME unicorn jacket

Me and Sarah Beth Durst, who has an awesome rundown of the whole event on her blog.

It was a really fun signing. Instead of doing a reading (which always makes my palms sweat in fear), we all got a chance to talk about the kernel of the idea behind our books. And regular blog readers know I can go on forever about the ideas behind killer unicorns. After our presentations, a school principal came up to me and said she was buying Rampant because it sounded very educational. I hope, upon reading it, she decides there’s enough mythology, monasteries, and museums mixed in with the making out and the manslaughter.

See what I did there? What a wordsmith.

After the signing, Sarah Beth Durst and Sarah Cross and I went to a nearby bakery and had ridiculously rich hot chocolates with ridiculously large marshmallows in them. Then Sarah Cross and I went to dinner and caught up, since I hadn’t seen her since Team Castle. We caught up for, um, five hours. Eventually, the people at the restaurant took our teacups and water glasses away and refused to keep refilling. Getting the hint, we betook ourselves to Grand Central Station and kept catching up in the lobby until we finally, reluctantly, admitted we should both probably go home and get some sleep.

The next morning, I woke up, packed up my killer unicorn cookies:

And headed off on my day of extra special secret fabulous promotional events. I did a television appearance (more on that soon), a video interview (more on that a little less soon, but still not so long from now), and had nice long chats with my editor about — ahem — secret books I may or may not be writing (see column at right).

And then I came home to Sailor Boy and Rio and TempDog #4, who all missed me madly. And I spent all of Tuesday playing catch-up.

So, there you have it! Why I’ve not been around. Sorry.

In other news, I’ve got winners of the fabulous Kristin Cashore Giveaway, and here they are:

MICHELLE OF THE SPIRAL PATH (comment #7)

SARA OF THE HIDING SPOT (comment #16)

And here’s how it works. You two email me and tell me whether you want Graceling or Fire. First come, first served.