2017 Southern Kentucky Book Festival (Part 2)

My four days in Kentucky and at the Southern Kentucky Book Festival every year makes such an impression on me that it takes two posts to share everything I want to share! Last week I shared Emily's book choices, pictures of what she and her father did while they waited for me, and some pictures of my friends and me. This week I thought I'd share a little bit of behind the scenes.

First of all, if you arrive on Thursday, as I do, for Children's Day on Friday, the local book club hosts an author salon at a private home. There is a beautiful hors devour spread, and a story request. This year's request was for a short story about an author or illustrator living or dead.

For some reason, there was a glitch and I didn't receive my request information, so I had to think of a story on the fly. Thankfully, I was sitting by my friend Mark who is one of the most awesome illustrators I know as well as a new Middle Grade author. I had a story to tell about the year when a little girl at the festival yanked her friend to my table exclaiming, "Here she is. She's the best drawer ever."

To fully understand this, you have to know that my drawing skills are barely above stick person compared to Mark's; and of course, he was sketching away brilliantly at the end of the aisle. But, the farm animal I had drawn for the girl apparently made an impact that I could never have imagined. Despite this coo, I heartily encourage you to check out the books Mark has illustrated and the ones he's written. Here are just a few I've read!

Friday evening, after the Children's Day event is complete, there is an author reception. This is where the public and authors mingle and they announce the winner of the Kentucky Book Award. This is an event I adore because there isn't much time to mingle with friends when you're signing books. This is where I hang with some of the coolest people I know and where I am introduced to authors I don't know yet, but people I will probably come to love.

Lois Sephaban, me, and bestie Lori A. Moore

Bestie Mark Wayne Adams, bestie Virginia (Ginny) Smith,
and the handsome Ray Peden

Well, that about wraps it up for this week. Join me next week for another exciting episode, same crazy time, same crazy channel. Also be sure to drop by Literacy Musings Mondays for more great blogs as well as my personal website Fun With Aileen where you will find more on reading, writing, and my very own chapter and picture books. And finally, you can find me on twitter @AileenWStewart if you want an extremely brief glimpse into my days.

Road Trip!

I know this post is a tiny bit late today, but Emily and I just got home late last night from a four day road trip to the Central Massachusetts Children's Book Festival. This is the first time just she and I have traveled together, and we had a blast. We played a travel scavenger hunt and a license plate game, to help pass the time, which I downloaded from education.com. Education.com is a great site for worksheets, and I have found it particularly useful since we started homeschooling. 

My Very First Selfie

Once at the book fair, Emily helped me set up and watched my table as I passed out blueberry banana bread to my fellow authors. It seemed appropriate to choose this recipe because it is a recipe from my latest book, Cooking In Fern Valley. It received lots of compliments and a few people even purchased the book so they could go home and make some bread of their own.

I was super excited to see my friends Barbara and Victor Mojica, two extremely talented people. Barbara is the author of a series of books called Little Miss History which is illustrated by Victor. The third book in this series particularly caught my eye as I have long been fascinated with the Sequoia trees.

Beside illustrating Barbara's books, Victor has a wonderful book of his own called Captain Crossbones. It is a story of fabulous treasure. Victor keeps the reader in suspense until the last page as to what the fabulous treasure really is, and since I don't want to spoil the surprise, you will just have to get a copy of  your own to find out!

I was also able to finally meet some of my Face Book friends in person. I met the incredibly talented illustrator Diane deGroat, super talented author/illustrator David Biedrzycki, and fabulous author Melissa Stewart. And I met some great new friends like Jef Cezkaj, Carol Gordon Eckster, Joannie Duris, Jennifer Kam, David Kelly, Sarah Lamstein, Heather Lang, Jane Sutton, Joanne Roach-Evans, Susie Rich, and Gordon Morrison.

For school, I asked Emily to interview one of the authors in attendance. She chose Paul Czajak who was sitting beside me. She fell in love with his monster series and decided to chose one of his books as her take home souvenir. As soon as she is finished, I will post her interview.

Well, that about wraps it up for this week. Join me next week for another exciting episode, same crazy time, same crazy channel. And feel free to drop by my personal website, Fun With Aileen, any day of the week for even more on reading, writing, my very own early grade chapter book, Fern Valley, the sequels, Return To Fern Valley,  and Cooking In Fern Valley, along with my very first picture book, Quack and Daisy! I'm also on twitter @AileenWStewart if you want an extremely brief glimpse into my days.