Dreaming Anastasia Road Show

Me and the Chicago part of the Preble family at my Borders' signing. Do you see the HOT sign on the display of Dreaming Anastasia's?


Lou Malnati's pizza - just like Anne and Tess eat in an early chapter of DA

University Hall at Northwestern - the real building for the fictional setting of Professor Olensky's office in DA.

Award winning illustrator Larry Day, who was signing with me at the St. Mary's book fair in Riverside.

My little table at St. Mary's Book Fair.

Me at the John Cooper School Signature Series Event

Just back from Chicago events and before that the John Cooper School Signature Series here in The Woodlands, TX. Three days off from school, two book fairs, a teacher round table and a Friday the 13th book signing at Borders north of Chicago in Wilmette. In quick summation, I present the Dreaming Anastasia Road Show Highlights:

• Getting to listen to John Grogan talk about his dog Marley and book talking Dreaming Anastasia with anyone who stopped by my table.


• Flying to Chicago on a half empty plane and having row 19 all to myself. And what did I do with all this bounty? Spread out so I could grade Antigone tests. Oh the life a famous author!


• Visiting with the 7th and 8th graders at St. Mary's School in Riverside. What a great group you are! Plus Jessica and her team, including her husband who graciously brought back Diet Coke and warm oatmeal raisin cookies from McDonald's during the dinner lull.
• Getting to meet picture book illustrator Larry Day, who was great company during the above mentioned dinner lull at St. Mary's.


• Getting to visit my alma mater Northwestern and donating a copy of Dreaming Anastasia to the YA collection at the library.


• Driving along Sheridan road from Wilmette to Evanston and later along Lake Shore Drive to Hyde Park. Chicago cooperated with 60 degree weather. In November.


• Staying with my cousin Sara who is an amazing baker and has a freezer full of cookies and brownies and other crazy good stuff and seeing a bunch of other family, too.


• Getting to hang with college friends - for lunches, coffee, after one of my signings. Something about being with the people that knew you when that's sweet and humbling and just oh so right! Hard to be a diva when you're with people who have held your hair back so you could vomit...


• Reconnecting with the Chicago Preble's! You guys rock!


• Dinner with author @PattyJMurphy!


• Lunch with 2k9er's Fran Slayton and Susan Fine, and the ever fabulous best publicist ever @psamuelson01 - otherwise known as Publicist Paul. And did I mentiont that it was 60 degrees out that day? In November? In Chicago?


• The great Look What's HOT display of Dreaming Anastasia's at Border's in Wilmette for my signing - at which I read some, signed some, answered a bunch of questions, and even learned more about the story of the Dreaming Anastasia cover from Sourcebooks' own Kay Mitchell, who drove with Paul Samuelson and the intrepid Teddy Roosevelt all the way from Naperville in Friday night traffic to be with me.


• Hanging with teachers and the fab Angela at 57th Street Books in Hyde Park.

In short - Thank You! to readers, friends, family and to the Sourcebooks team that made the Dreaming Anastasia Chicago tour a reality!

Til next time...

Bookmarks!

Thanks to my fabulous Sourcebooks publicist, Paul Samuelson, I now have Dreaming Anastasia bookmarks. My favorite part is the sentence he came up with to put on the front. It reads: "What would you do if your nightmare turned out to be more than just a dream - and the only way to stop it was to believe the impossible?"

It is - honestly - the perfect description of what was in my head writing Dreaming Anastasia. (okay, that and "Ack! I will never finish this. What was I thinking writing a book with three narrators?" and other helpful stuff like that) But seriously - Paul! You are a genius.

Til next time...