Cleveland Trip, Books of Wonder and other things

Last weekend was a trip to Cleveland to speak at the Margaret Skiff Literature conference. There were about 200 librarians and teachers in attendance. The speakers were, Pat Cummings, William Low, Denise Fleming and myself. Pat had some hysterical stories about her childhood and showed some work from her books "Talking with Artists". William Low also gave a great presentation on his process for working digitally. I have always been a fan of William's work, so it was a treat to spend the weekend with him. My talk was about how I got into the business and how I made "Wolf! Wolf!". It is always hard to tell how your own talk went, but I think it went well. Finally Denise Fleming brought the house down with her zaniness, and gave a fantastic demonstration of her paper-making technique.
When I came back from Cleveland I did my first in-store signing for Moonpowder at the Books of Wonder in NYC. There was a decent size crowd, but to be honest I think doing a signing with Lane Smith and Etienne Delessert didn't hurt! I also had the pleasure of meeting Dave Horowitz, the maker of some very funny books including "Five Little Gefiltes". It turns out he and I share a mutual friend, Tylor Durand, of the band "The Hornrims".

Bryant Park

Yesterday I had the extreme pleasure of doing a book reading in Bryant Park. It was part of the Children's Book Week celebration hosted by the Children's Book Council. I was thrilled to be introduced by one of my favorite authors...the Ambassador of Children's books, Jon Scieszka.
Greg Foley read from his "Thank You Bear" and "Don't Worry Bear" books, and Jack Lechner read from his very funny "Mary Had a Little Lamp" illustrated by the talented Bob Staake.
It was a fun day in the park and I was joined by my wife and daughter and a bunch of friends. My daughter was excited to hang out with Curious George and Clifford the Big Red Dog, but she was really enthralled with the man in the Lion costume. (I don't know what book he was from) After we all went to the Oyster Bar in Grand Central station to celebrate the Day before Mother's Day!