Where I've been hiding....

Hey yall!

Busy-ness has kept me away from this blog... my apologies!  Here's what I've been up to:

Hangin with friends!  Here are Amy Kathleen Ryan and Lauren Myracle -- we're celebrating Amy's new release-- GLOW!  This is an incredibly exciting futuristic novel -- if you haven't read it yet, you should-- but be aware it'll keep you up way too late at night...


Here's Victoria Hanley, brilliant fantasy author and woman of many talents, giving Amy (who's a new mom) a much needed massage.  (And then she gave me one!  Heaven!)

Todd Mitchell (author of The Secret to Lying, one of my all-time fave books), pouring the champagne...

So much fun...

 So, other stuff I've been up to... doing presentations and book club talks with Maria Virginia for The Queen of Water!  She's been in town for about 6 weeks , so we've been squeezing in lots of events before she goes back to Ecuador.  It's been amazing and heart-warming for her to talk with so many people who've read her story-- it's meant a lot to her (and to me)-- we both thank everyone who came to our events this fall!


Here we are at Front Range Community College, where we first met when I was an ESL teacher and she was a student! (That's ESL teacher buddy Sarita above.)  Maria wanted to be sure to get the American flag in the pic-- she loves the USA-- it's nice to see my country through her eyes.


I've also been conferencing! I did a lunchtime keynote for CLAS (Colo Lang Arts Society) in Golden. Here I am with a teacher from Centennial Middle-- her school is reading Red Glass as a One School Reads book... I"ll be visiting them in the spring-- exciting!

I lived in Golden for a summer when I was about 20-- I worked at a restaurant downtown which required that I dress like a cowgirl. I remember reading lots of mythology collections from all over the world that summer, and writing lots of short, fantastical stories.  I loved hanging out in a little park by a dragon sculpture, writing in my notebook.   This trip brought back good memories of my summer there... here's the view from my hotel patio... so pretty:



Writing news: I've finished up copy edits for The Jade Notebook (Feb 2012 release), and am now waiting for page proofs.  I'm getting ready to do an author visit to my old middle school in Maryland, then a visit at Mt. St. Mary's College, then my 20th high school reunion... should be interesting!

Thanks for reading!

xo,
Laura