We’re always working on adding content to our site, but I thought you might find it useful and interesting that we now have message boards. It’s just the beginning, so pop over and discuss Mirrorstone books! Get involved in a conversation about using fantasy in the classroom! Do you homeschool? How does the freedom to set your curriculum change the dynamic of teaching reading or using fantasy? Discuss it now.

Our friends over at the Official Time-waster’s Guide have posted the second podcast interview with a Mirrorstone author from ALA. Check it out! Candice is the author of over 100 books for children, so her vast experience is something most people can learn from–and she’s just plain entertaining, too.

I heard over at Meg Cabot’s blog that there’s a rumor going round that the SciFi channel might not renew The Dresden Files for a second season. What is it with all the good shows only lasting one season? Well, like Meg Cabot, it is one of the only shows on SciFi I look forward to. In fact, I downloaded the entire season to date off Itunes last year when I discovered the show midseason. I myself am also partial to Eureka, which happily just returned with a second season a couple days ago, but in general a lot of shows have died a premature death. (Jericho comes to mind, but to me that’s because the writing died an early death halfway through the first season–I mean, I could drive a truck through the plot holes and survival mistakes in that show. It felt like it was written from the perspective of that D.C. tax investigator who’d never stepped foot on a Midwestern farm until that day of the attacks. Really, someone in that town ought to have known how to preserve meat, perhaps even been a regular hunter and trapper. And didn’t they have any Mormons in town with food storage?? And all the waste of generator power and lamp oil for a picnic when the next ep. was about how the hospital generator fails? Those writers should have read Life as We Knew It.)

Anyway, Meg has all the linkage you’ll need on contacting the SciFi channel if you, too, feel like it’s a tragedy that should be averted. I myself have written an email to the executives her link mentions, as well as filed away a plan to print and mail that email via snail mail because apparently snail mail has more effect.

Here’s an excerpt of what I said in my own email behind the cut below. If you have watched this show and loved it, you might consider dropping a note of your own. If you’ve never watched it, you might consider doing so. I liked it. As I’m sure you can tell.

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Speaking of Meg Cabot, just finished the first book of the Mediator series, Shadowland, and I’m working on the second on my commute (via audiobook). Highly recommend it, and I can’t believe I didn’t ever hear of this until the last year or so. Speaking of a book that should be made into a TV show, there’s one right there–much better concept than that of Ghost Whisperer (which I don’t care for) or even (much as I actually like it) Medium. Nothing like a little ghost butt-kicking. Except, they should probably make Hallowmere into a TV show first. Gotta have my priorities in the right order!

Holly Black (

blackholly

), Cecil Castellucci (

castellucci

) and me. Holly and Cecil will have stories in our forthcoming fantasy anthology, Magic in the Mirrorstone, edited by Steve Berman (

mroctober

). I was fortunate enough to acquire the anthology, but sadly, due to schedules and such, I haven’t been the editor working on it in its final stages. But I’ve read many of the stories and I’m working on the rest, and I must say, you can’t miss this one! Cecil Castellucci’s story is her first fantasy, and I think it’s a good one. Holly’s is the next one on my to-read list, but I’m sure it’ll be just as good as all her others! I’ll o
f course report back my impressions later. 🙂 Tiffany Trent will also be in the anthology with a “lost story” of Hallowmere.

The line in our famous booth for Candice Ransom’s signing (Time Spies).

…and for Tiffany’s signing in the booth. I wish I’d gotten a clearer picture of Candice’s signing. I’m not sure what I was thinking.

  The line for Tiffany’s signing in the Random House booth. (Random House is our distributor, and they were very good to us at this show, and at BEA from what I hear–I didn’t go to BEA.)

 I think I’m going to become a paparrazzi in my spare time.

Tiffany signing for a YALSA Teen.
 

Tiffany with her author sign for the RH booth.

The gate to Chinatown, which was right down the street from the convention center, where we often found lunch.

Cecil Castellucci’s reading at the Live @ Your Library Stage, complete with all the Janes.

 

And Tiffany’s signing right after her own reading at the Live @ Your Library stage. (Too bad it was so dark in there. I didn’t want to use flash and be all distracting, so my pictures of her actual reading are pretty dark.)

 Tiffany signing In the Serpent’s Coils.
 Sarah Beth Durst as a chimera!

Speaking of Sarah, I got a picture taken with her and Tiffany that I forgot to include. Or at least, I could have sworn that I’d gotten one taken. But all I could find was this one of Tiffany and Sarah together alone:

They still look like they’re having a good time without me. 

And you thought that was a lot of pictures? That’s just the tip of the iceberg, and I’m not diving down into it to find more. But if you want to, you’re welcome to see the whole sorry lot (including the sorry photos, which I forgot to delete), you can see them here. But this is all I’ll organize!

Yesterday was the first truly HOT day of the summer here in Seattle–up to the mid 90s, they say–and today should be similar. I however am sitting in my over-airconditioned office with a cardigan on, considering popping downstairs for a hot chocolate. The reason is that part of the building has had unreliable air conditioning for a couple weeks now, which means our AC tends to overcompensate. 

But I’m not complaining. No sir. Northwest summers are relatively cool and beautiful most of the time (at least on the coast–it’s murder in the high desert) and relatively dry, too. The little-known secret about Seattle–known for it’s “year-round” rain–is that it doesn’t actually rain here from about late June through mid-October. My lawn is brittle and dead, just like any lawn in a desert area. Now, it’ll come back to life as soon as the rain comes back in the fall, and it’ll be green almost through the winter (thankfully, though, I won’t have to mow it most of the winter!), but for the next few months we have some amazing biking, hiking, swimming, camping, and in general outdoo
rsy weather you could imagine, and not nearly as hot as pretty much any other place I’ve lived.

Except yesterday and today. Yesterday I thought of going for a run, but opted for ice cream instead. I rarely eat ice cream–it’s just not something I think of first–but it’s definitely ice cream weather.

But the real reason for this post is behind the cut. Finally, I’ve uploaded and am now sharing with you some highlights of my ALA trip!

That was all the first day, before the show actually began, when I had a few spare hours to see a little bit of the city.

Now, on to the actual show! That’s in the next post. This one’s has a lot of p
ictures already.

Help me out here, people. If you’re commenting anonymously, at least give me a name, if not a link. Help me tell the difference between you and a spambot! 🙂
In other news, I finally got the pictures uploaded. Will try to post the highlights later today, but right now I need to get out the door to work.

I’ve been trying to upload my ALA pictures all day via my friend’s FTP site (which then goes to my own photo hosting, thus saving myself LJ storage space)–essential when you’re dealing with 500+ pictures–and it stalled at #27. I think the site must be down for maintenance or something. I’ll try again some other time, when of course ALA will be ancient history in blog time, but y’know. Plus, I have some fun pictures from the 4th I was going to share.
Right now I need to go to bed, though, because tomorrow I start working with a personal trainer at bright-and-early 9 a.m., which means I need to be to the gym earlier to get ready, and all that. I love my job, and it’s not just the work, which is of course awesome. It’s the gym at which we have access to things like personal trainers at a discount, and getting to see a preview showing of Transformers (go see it! it’s so fun!). 
At any rate, one of these days I’ll catch up and post pictures. And read everyone’s posts of the last 2 or 3 weeks–I’ve been unable to keep up lately! I’m reading a little bit tonight, and I kind of think I won’t try to catch up so much as just start reading again. 🙂

Pictures sold separately, i.e., this post was too freaking long to add pictures to it, too.

My first day at ALA was a day before everyone else, meeting Jeff (

maddrjeffe

) and Eric of The Official Timewaster’s Guide with Tiffany (

tltrent

) to do a podcast interview. It went really well, and the interview is live here: http://www.timewastersguide.com/article/1559/Time-Waster\s-Radio-1-Hallowmere—-In-the-Serpent\s-Coils.

 

blackholly

dropped by the booth with

castellucci

 and a few others, and it was so nice to catch up with all of them. She was also kind enough to come to Tiffany’s reading at the Live @ Your Library stage, so I got to chat with her and

theoblack

 for a little while. Theo designed Tiffany’s website, among many others. Earlier in the week, Theo had been passing around a petition for Tiffany, which was both funny and touching.

castellucci 

read right before Tiffany did, and I have pictures of what a great entertainer she is, which will end up in my next post. Her new graphic novel, The Plain Janes, just came out from Minx, and as you can imagine, reading a graphic novel out loud can be a challenge! So she recruited several members of the audience to each be a Jane, and they each read a part. Cecil herself did Theater Jane, and I think that was the perfect part for her. 🙂 You’ll see when you see the pictures. 

Also got the chance to meet 

melissa_writing

 (congrats on the NYT!) and her son, and Sarah Beth Durst, both also blogfriends. I have now finally picked up real copies of both their books, too–I’ve already read Wicked Lovely in ARC, but never was able to find an ARC of Into the Wild. Debby Garfinkle (

dlgarfinkle

), author of the Supernatural Rubber Chicken series slated with us for next year, was at the conference for her current books, and so I was finally able to meet this LJ friend too. Debby writes amazingly funny books. 
 

I was thinking about all the things I need to write about, but

tltrent

 has summed it up already from her perspective. I’ll just follow that up with pictures, as soon as I’ve had the chance to process them. There are many–my camera was on the multiple-shot setting, which tripled the number of shots to go through!–so it might not be till later this weekend. I’m thinking a nap is in order before I do that!