Young Writers’ Conference

On April 19, 2008, I’ll be one of the speakers at the 2008 Young Writers’ Conference in Emporia. Here’s a link to the great article the Emporia Gazette ran about the conference.

A Full Day at Borders

My friend Suzanne Lieurance is simply tireless. She does so many things in a day—writes, coaches writers, interviews writers for her daily blog talk radio show Book Bites for Kids, reviews books, runs probably 37 different writing-related websites (37 may be an exaggeration, but not by much), owns and operates a gourmet baking mix company—that I am convinced she has finally mastered cloning technology and now has ten or twelve Suzannes to do her bidding.

A couple years ago she started the KC Writers Meetup, a group for Kansas City area writers, and it’s not only still going strong, it’s getting bigger and better all the time. The group holds a monthly meeting at the espresso bar at a local Borders, and each month they invite a speaker. For their April 5 meeting, Suzanne has invited me to conduct a workshop on writing dialogue.

Which in itself is pretty cool. But it just gets even cooler because when she contacted Borders, they invited me to be on a children’s writer panel in celebration of Educator Appreciation Week, scheduled that same day.

Here are the details:

Children’s Writer Panel
Noon–2 p.m.

KC Writers Meetup Workshop
Tips & Tricks for Writing Effective Dialogue
2–3 p.m.

Saturday
April 5, 2008
Borders Books
119th & Metcalf
Overland Park, Kansas

What a Glorious Day

Some days I wake up inexplicably. . . happy. Today is one of those days.

Part of it—a huge part, I’m sure—is the weather. This is the third day in a row of beautiful sunshine and warm weather. It’s been windy as heck, but that’s okay. This is Kansas, after all, so we’re used to wind, and (in one of those instances where nature is wiser than we mere mortals) it turns out that wind has a real plus side: It’s drying up all that nasty mud we’ve been fighting out here in rural America as weeks of snow and ice have finally melted and turned our driveways and gravel roads into pudding.

Another huge part of my happiness is yesterday’s panel and booksigning at the Topeka Barnes & Noble. I’m always sure nobody will show up, but we had a nice little group who were almost all writers, and I think our discussion was well-received. And hanging out in a bookstore with writers, talking about writing and drinking frou-frou coffee drinks laced with cinnamon and whipped cream, is always a fun time. My thirteen year old wanted to come with me, and I think later, as extreme boredom nearly sent him into a coma, he regretted it, but I always enjoy his company and was glad for his help schlepping my stuff to and from the car.

Another big part of the happiness is that I think my writing is going well. In all the angst we writers have about getting published and sweating the reviews and hoping our books sell well enough that we can publish the next one, the rock-bottom truth is, it’s all about the writing. When I’m working, creating, giving life to my characters and their stories, I’m happy, and I have a real sense that everything else will follow (eventually).

It’s supposed to snow and sleet tonight, and I think my daughter is coming down with the nasty flu bug my son and I had a couple weeks ago, so I’m going to enjoy my happiness while I can.

I’m Available in Softcover

Hooray! The paperback version of Airball: My Life in Briefs will be released Tuesday, March 4—four days from now. It’s published by Square Fish, my publisher’s paperback imprint, and I love the new cover:










P.S. Happy Leap Day. I keep thinking I need to commemorate this day, which only rolls around every four years, by leaping into something new and exciting and slightly scary, something I’ve been wanting to do but have been too busy or too afraid. . . but I can’t think what that something would be. So maybe I’ll just leap into some drawings for my middle-grade WIP (comic book panels that my superhero-wannabe main character is creating as his own story goes along) and do so without fear or self-doubt.

I’m Updated!

Well, not me personally (ask my son—he’ll be happy to tell you how quickly I’m sinking into old fogeydom), but my website is updated, at least partially. I’ve added some upcoming events to the calendar page:

Panel Discussion and Booksigning
Topeka Barnes & Noble
Saturday, March 1, 2008
(see below)

Kansas SCBWI Workshop
KU Edwards Campus in Overland Park
Saturday, March 15, 2008

Young Writers Conference
Emporia High School
Saturday, April 19, 2008

Great Manhattan Mystery Conclave
Manhattan, Kansas
October 31–November 2, 2008

I’ll be adding some school visits and other events in the very near future.

Panel Discussion and Signing

I love Esther Luttrell. She was a script advisor, script consultant, and screenwriter in Hollywood for many, many years, and she is a wonderful and generous screenwriting teacher. I took a class from her a few years back at UMKC (University of Missouri–Kansas City—I keep forgetting that not everybody knows all the local acronyms). Now she lives in Topeka, and she’s writing mysteries. Her novel Murder at the Movies, which draws on her Hollywood background, has just been released.

Esther has arranged a panel discussion and booksigning at the Topeka Barnes & Noble, and she has invited me and Mark Bouton to join her on the panel. Mark is a terrific mystery writer and retired FBI agent whom I’ve met at several GMMCs (Great Manhattan Mystery Conclaves). He was one of the agents who investigated the Oklahoma City bombing and tracked down and arrested Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols.

I am so looking forward to the panel. The Topeka Barnes & Noble has been very good to me and to Airball. Here are the particulars:

Demystifying the Mystery of Writing Mysteries
Panel Discussion and Booksigning with Esther Luttrell, Mark Bouton, and Lisa Harkrader
2 to 4 p.m.
Saturday
March 1, 2008
Barnes & Noble
6130 SW 17th Street
(17th and Wanamaker)
Topeka, KS 66615
785-273-9600

I’m so impressed with everything Esther has done to arrange this event, and tickled to death that she invited me to join her.

What I’ve Been Up To. . .

. . . besides writing, writing, writing (and actually—no kidding—getting a lot written that doesn’t completely stink):

Yesterday I did a school visit at Jeff West (Jefferson County West Unified School District, for those of you who don’t live in northeast Kansas :-) ), and I had a great time. I talked to the 4th and 5th graders at the Intermediate School in Ozawkie and the 6th and 7th graders at the Middle School in Meriden, and they were all just terrific. Their teachers and librarians prepared them well, reading Airball out loud in class, talking up the visit, making Airball bulletin boards, and all those wonderful things teachers and librarians do every day that get taken for granted.

I’ve actually done several school visits lately. Last month I was in Linwood, talking to the 7th and 8th grades at Basehor-Linwood Middle School. Before Christmas I talked to kids in Overbrook and Stanton. And I always have a great time.

Which, knowing my personality the way I do and for as many years as I have, surprises me. People laugh when I tell them this, but I’m a very shy person. And the first few times I did school visits, I was so panic-stricken (I agreed to do WHAT? In front of HOW MANY KIDS? Did I have a head injury? What was I THINKING?) before the visits that I honestly and truly thought I would pass out in the car on the way. And then I sort of hoped I would because running my car into the ditch seemed infinitely preferable to speaking to an auditorium full of middle graders.

But, to my surprise, I find that I enjoy speaking to auditoriums (auditoria?) full of middle graders. And, even more surprising, they seem to enjoy it, too.

I’m still a shy person. But I find that as a writer, I need to have two personalities: Lisa the Hermit and Lisa Who is Allowed Out in Public. It’s sometimes hard to shift between the two. The Hermit likes being hunkered down at the computer with fictional characters, not having to fix her hair or talk to anyone real. But once I let my Public personality out, she ends up on such an adrenaline high after school visits that she really hates to be put back into the cave.

Other stuff my Public personality has been doing includes a really fun day before Christmas, when I spent the morning at the Barnes and Noble in Topeka at the Auburn-Washburn Book Fair talking to kids and teachers and parents, listening to the elementary school early morning choirs, and signing books with Beverley Olson Buller, author of From Emporia: The Story of William Allen White, a terrific biography that includes incredible photos, many from the morgue of the Kansas City Star and not widely published before now.

I wished I could have stayed there all day, but I left just after noon to motor over to The Book Barn (which, as I’ve said before, is a wonderful, wonderful independent bookstore in historic downtown Leavenworth). Owners Bob and Barb Spear were hosting their annual holiday open house, and they invited me to be their guest, along with Ally Carter, author of the wildly popular Gallagher Girls books, a YA series about a spy boarding school for girls. I had a great time there, too, talking to readers, answering questions, signing books.

I’m very lucky my Public personality gets invited to so many events. And I’m lucky that the Hermit allows her to go.

M.T. Anderson in Kansas City

For anyone in the Kansas City area interested in children’s books, M.T. Anderson, author of Feed, Thirsty and many other middle-grade and young adult novels, will be speaking about his book, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing:

Monday, January 28th
7 p.m.
Plaza Branch
Kansas City Library
4801 Main Street
Kansas City, Missouri 64112

Octavian Nothing, set during the Revolutionary War, won the 2006 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature.

Reading Reptile, cosponsor of the event, will be selling Mr. Anderson’s books. The author will sign books purchased during the event.

This is event is free, but you must reserve a seat at kclibrary.org/rsvp/2008/mtanderson.

Sara Paretsky in Lawrence

In the spirit of being a recovering bad blogger, I’m posting twice today. Here’s an upcoming event for fans of mysteries, Kansas stories, or just plain good books:

Sara Paretsky
Talk and Book Signing
Tuesday, January 22
7:30 pm
Lawrence Arts Center
940 New Hampshire
Lawrence, Kansas

Lawrence native Sara Paretsky, creator of fictional Chicago private eye V. I. Warshawski, will talk about her writing career in this program, “Why I Write the Books I Do,” co-sponsored by the Hall Center for the Humanities, the Lawrence Public Library and The Raven Bookstore. The first 100 attendees will receive a free copy of Paretsky’s new book, Bleeding Kansas, a stand-alone mystery set in Douglas County. Paretsky will sign books following the talk. The event will be held at the Lawrence Arts Center, and is free and open to the public.

A Bad, Bad Blogger

I’m a bad, bad blogger. I haven’t posted anything to my blog since November. November! That was last year. I’m not sure anyone noticed, since I’m not entirely convinced anyone reads my blog anyway, but just in case, here is a list of my excuses:

1. I was busy doing writer events. (Which coud be a really good excuse, except that one of the reasons my blog exists in the first place is so that I can talk about my writer events.)
2. We had an ice storm and our power was out for almost a week. (This one is actually a good excuse, for anyone, really, but especially for me. Sadly, my life comes to a standstill without electricity. I’m a girl who likes her modern conveniences.)
3. Christmas blindsided me again. (I always swear it won’t happen this year, but it always does.)
4. After we slogged our way through the power outage and the holidays, I somehow got on a roll with my writing, and it’s going so well that I hate to stop and do anything else. (Believe it or not, this is true.)

Anyway, I’m getting my act together. I’ll post about my writer events from the past two months and also about events coming up in the near future. I can’t stand the guilt that comes from ignoring my blog.