( Read more... )

( Read more... )

( Read more... )

1)  The Little League Western Regionals start today.  While I always enjoy the tournament, and seeing teams from different states (including Alaska), it's a little bittersweet.  A sign that the end of summer is rapidly approaching, and (sigh) the team from Corona didn't make it there again.  At least I saw them win the first two rounds of playoffs ( Read more... )

Books + cupcakes + lisa_schroeder  = a fun evening at Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena.

As if finally meeting Lisa (and new Facebook friend Alyson Beecher) last night wasn't enough, the owner of a local bakery, Polkatots (www.PolkatotsCupcakes.com), put up a white cupcake tier that looked a lot like the one on the cover of Lisa's MG novel, It's Raining Cupcakes. ( Read more... )

I've said it before: it's funny how many "coincidences" seem to pop up in my life.  I was disappointed in May because Rathskellar, the deaf performance art group, wasn't at DeafNation Expo in Pomona.  I first saw them perform there last year, and finally got to meet founder Jonathan Hall Kovacs, an actor whose TV work I'd admired in the '80s.  (I ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

I worked in a fifth-grade classroom this week, which was a nice change of pace.  I took a lot of notes, as usual.  Today the students wrote and read their own stories for language arts, and I was impressed with their imaginations.  Some examples ( Read more... )

• I ended up in "Little India" yesterday.   The section of Artesia,  CA that I'd been meaning to visit since I read about it in India West (a free paper from the local Indian market).   I'd been doing some research for a WIP character whose parents might run a little market.   And I'd just happened to find a handy book at B&N called The Indian ( Read more... )

More randomness (since I'm not schmoozing at the SCBWI conference ( Read more... )