A little humility goes a long way

Last night at TLA I was at a party hosted by Random House, Sourcebooks and more. I had a great time meeting a variety of fab authors, including the inspiring Jon Sciezka. He was very kind and gracious to talk to.  It is always amazing to meet the authors that my kids and I love.

I met and talked to a few new authors, including the authors of COLIN FISCHER. Zach Stentz shared with me that he has children on the Autism spectrum, which influenced the book that he co wrote with Ashley Edward Miller.  His goal was to have a teen on the ASD spectrum be a man character as opposed to a peripheral character.  As you know, Autism and Libraries is a huge focus of mine here at TLT so I am hoping that we will get to talk more with these authors. I just got the book in at my library and am looking forward to reading it.

Author PJ Hoover also introduced me to author Mari Mancusi, who gave me a dragon to promote her upcoming YA fantasy Scorched. I like dragons so I’ll be checking this title out.

I ran in to some librarians, like the ever fab Naomi Bates (from YA Books and More), Jen Bigheart (Director of the Austin Teen Book Festival) and Stacy Wells (from Girls in the Stacks). Then I met a few new librarians who were like, “I love your blog.” That’s always nice because I am not going to lie, it is nice to know people read and like what you are doing.

Then I came home and my children are always there to keep it all in perspective and keep me firmly grounded in reality. My 4-yr-old came into bed with me in the middle of the night claiming she missed me, and then she promptly peed all over us both. So much for living the glamorous life LOL.  Those kids will keep you humble every time.

Today begins day two of TLA and the exhibit hall opens. If you have never been the exhibit hall rocks because:

1) you learn about a lot of new products and services

2) there are so many books! It is truly glorious and you usually end up spending a ton of money. Or going back to your library and ordering a lot. Sometimes seeing and touching a book really helps.

3) You get to meet a variety of authors.

4) You get to talk to your fellow librarians and just soak up the dedication and inspiration.

And 5) You will walk away with at least a handful of good ideas to take back to your library.

I’ll try to Tweet as I can. And ignore any typos in this post as I just threw it up on the app on my phone, which is less than ideal.

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