Hello! Well, now I'm awake and refreshed and can blog live again! Just got home and getting ready for my book agent's party tonight! Until then, let's get going on what happened so far on Days 3 & 4 of the SCBWI National Conference... keep reading!

DAY THREE: (August 2, 2008): We begin with the delightful and wacky yet extremely graceful and elegant ERIN EITTER KONO, who I think is the World's. Greatest. Artist. Ever. She is also a very good dancer! Here she is being silly with the galley of her latest picture book, Grandmother Have the Angels Come? (written by Denise Vega, Little, Brown '08). Check out her website here: http://www.eekono.com/index.html

I then attended RACHEL COHN's speech, "Embracing (and Resisting the Urge to Throttle) Your Inner Teen." She talked about what inspired her as a teen and how even though she grew up in the '80s embracing Goth culture and '80s pop culture, she realized the passion she had for those things was timeless and she was able to instill that passion into her fictional contemporary teens growing up today. She ended her lecture with the trailer for the movie of her latest book, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (Random House '08). Check out her website here to find out more about her books and to see the movie trailer: http://www.rachelcohn.com/

I then had to meet "LITTLE WILLOW" (famous bookstore blogger) and JUSTINA CHEN HEADLEY, author of North of Beautiful (Little, Brown '09), and founder of Readergrlz. I will be the Readergrlz featured author in September 2008. Check out a future blog with more details on that, or go to their website at: http://readergirlz.com. Also check out Little Willow's blog at: http://www.slayground.net/bildungsroman/

Justina and Little Willow were interviewing and filming several YA authors for a youtube series they will post later this month. I brought my violin and played some of the pieces from GOOD ENOUGH as well as some Led Zep. Here's me, Little Willow, and Justina after we filmed my youtube segment:

I also met these cool YA authors who also filmed youtube segments with Readergirlz:

Such as the adorable SARA LEWIS HOLMES, author of "Letters From Rapunzel" (HarperCollins '07)... Check out her website here: http://saralewisholmes.com/

And TINA FERRARO, the uber cool author of "Top Ten Uses for an Unworn Prom Dress" (Delacorte '07), a book that best-selling Twilight author Stephanie Meyers recommends as seen in this brochure Tina's holding up... Check out Tina's website here for more infoon her and her books: http://www.tinaferraro.com/

I also chatted with the lovely supermodelesque APRIL HALPRIN WAYLAND, author of "Girl Coming In For a Landing" (Yearling '04). Turns out she plays violin - fiddle - too! We had fun talking about music! Check out her website at: http://www.aprilwayland.com/

I then hung out with good friends Kitty Donohoe, a teacher and accomplished middle grade novelist, and JOYCE LEE WONG, author of "Seeing Emily" (Amulet '07).

And I ran into MICHAEL REISMAN, author of "Simon Bloom, the Gravity Keeper" (Dutton '08) and STEPHANIE HEMPHILL, whose book "Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath" (Knopf '07) was a Printz Honor book last year. Here's Michael playing with my travelling toy bear Bartlett and then Bartlett posing for a photo with Michael and Stephanie:

I also ran into... yes, I keep running into so many cool people at this conference! ... writer and artist and animator (Nickelodeon, Disney etc.) SU MOON and writer/book reviewer MELISSA!

Then we danced the night away at the annual SCBWI Conference Party. This year's theme was RED and it was called "Paint the Town Red." There were a lot of crazy red-themed costumes including YA novelist Jay Asher as a Red Elvis and a lot of crazy blinking hats, a Hollywood couple (red carpet get it?) and then I got asked to be a "seventh penguin" for a group of writers who wanted to dress up as penguins because all the SCBWI brochures this year had penguin illustrations everywhere. Rita has the photos of the party, so you should start checking out her blog here for these incriminating costume photos: http://rhcrayon.livejournal.com/

They played everything from disco to today's hip hop and then when they played "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey, I went NUTS! I jumped onstage and the DJ handed me a mic and I basically sang the song to about 900 people. It was my rock star moment!

DAY FOUR: Today I met my pal Jeff Lin from the band Harvey Danger for coffee this morning. He had a great gig at Largo on Saturday night. We had fun chatting again and then I had to go attend some workshops and he had to fly back to Seattle with the band. After coffee, I attended Brenda Bowen's "News from the Bowen Press" about the new imprint she is starting up at HarperCollins. Afterwards, I attended the Golden Kite Luncheon and these are the people who won the Golden Kite awards:

For Non-Fiction:

ANN BAUSUM for "Muckrakers: How Ida Tarbell, Upton Sinclair, and Lincoln Steffens Helped Expose Scandal, Inspire Reform, and Invent Investigative Journalism" (National Geographic Children's Books '07).

For Picture Book Illustration:

YUYI MORALES for "Little Night" (Roaring Brook Press '07).

For Picture Book Text:

SARA PENNYPACKER for "Pierre in Love" (Orchard Books '07).

For Fiction:

KATHERINE APPLEGATE for "Home of the Brave" (Feiwel & Friends '07).

And a shout out to KEN MIN, illustrator who won 2nd place in the annual SCBWI national contest for illustrators, and he's a friend of Erin Eitter Kono's that I met this week at the conference, so YAY KEN!!!!

Well, I'm now running late - gotta go get ready for my book agent's party! I'll post another blog tomorrow about the final day (sniff sniff ) of the SCBWI conference... stay tuned!