Keep reading for a report on the California School Library Association Conference in Ontario today!

Boy, what a busy weekend! My NaNoWriMo writing was put on hold because of this weekend. But it was worth it - I had a blast at the 2009 California School Library Association conference in Ontario, CA today! I did some live Tweeting about the event as well at http://twitter.com/PaulaYoo

According to the CSLA website: "The California School Library Association is an organization of library media teachers, classroom teachers, paraprofessionals, district and county coordinators of curriculum, media and technology, and others committed to enriching student learning by building a better future for school libraries." For more information, check out the CSLA here: http://www.csla.net/

I was honored to be a guest author at the conference brunch on Sunday, Nov. 22nd. We were treated to a yummy breakfast and a chance to meet and network with some very cool librarians. I met several awesome librarians from the Bakersfield school district. Not only were they all extremely passionate about books and children's literature and helping students develop a love for reading, but they also loved watching my favorite reality shows Survivor and Top Chef! Wow! How cool are these librarians?!

I also sat with author/illustrator MATT FAULKNER. (Check out his website here: http://www.mattfaulkner.com/) In fact, here is Matt holding up our plate of bacon from today's breakfast of scrambled eggs, croissant, and potato hash, LOL!

(Matt Faulkner brings the bacon! )

And below is a silly photo I took of Bakersfield High librarian Mark Britton. He was a good sport because I found it hilarious that we were given a huge plate of bacon and a huge plate of sausage for our breakfast, LOL! Thanks Mark and Matt!

I met a lot of cool children's picture book authors and YA novelists, including the authors pictured below. (Click on their names to check out their websites!)

Michael Reisman, me, & Betty G. Birney!

April Halprin Wayland & Erica Silverman!

Alexis O'Neill!

Me 'n Mitali Perkins!

The keynote speaker for today's brunch was author Bruce Hale. You can find out all about his books, including his latest picture book "SNORING BEAUTY" and his hilarious "Chet Gecko" detective series at http://www.brucehale.com/

Here's Bruce Hale and a closeup of his gold gecko!

Bruce gave a wonderful speech about this year's theme, "Serendipity of Learning." His speech was called, "Serendipity-dii-dah: Embracing the Unexpected in Writing & Life!" He talked about how he fell in love with reading as a child when his TV broke (LOL!) and how to turn lemons into lemonade when it comes to rejection letters from publishers/editors and trying to balance your writing with your "day job." He ended the speech with a rousing rendition of "Luck Be a Lady."

Afterwards, all of the authors and illustrators did a book signing. Mitali Perkins took a photo of me at the end of the hall because we were seated alphabetically and of course I was at the end of the alphabet!

I had a great time and it was fun to hang out with so many cool librarians and fellow writers! Thanks again to all the librarians and the wonderful folks at CSLA!

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Now that my weekend is done, I've got some serious catching up to do with NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). You can be my writing buddy here:  http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/170463

My word count so far? 32,438. I have to write 17,562 words in the next 8 days. Think I can do it? Yikes! Until then... as always... Happy Writing!