Crazy Weekend

Am afraid I don't have time to write a regular blog post this weekend. In the past two days, I managed to achieve the following:

Follow fellow author Rosanne Parry's directions to her house without getting lost, then follow her car to Lake Oswego High School, which is covered in scaffolding a la Academy 7.

Accept the Spirit of Oregon Award from the Oregon Council of Teachers of English for the best YA book of the year by an Oregon author for Academy 7. All my characters were very supportive of Aerin and Dane!

Meet fellow author, Laini Taylor, who has brilliant pink hair & was tremendous fun to talk to.

Teach an Author's Toolbox workshop at the OCTE Conference for other teachers (very brave people to attend early on a Friday which they could have taken off from work).

Follow my friend Maria's car to the Cedar Hills location of Powell's (in which I purchased the first Maximum Ride book and The Girl in the Arena (for me), and two illustrated classics for my classroom.

Meet fellow author, Sydney Salter, who was very sweet, and present a dialogue workshop with her for young writers at Powell's.

Purchase gas so that my car would not die in the middle of the city.

Miss the freeway entrance (this was the beginning of the end).

Find the address on Google & my printed Wordstock information for the Ace Hotel, but no Ace Hotel. Ask directions to the Ace Hotel, and head downtown where I attempted to find parking in the dark twice, finally ran out of time to attend the Wordstock author reception, managed to find my location on a map, and returned to Rosanne's.

Had a lovely breakfast of hot chocolate & cheese blintzes at Marcos's in Multnomah.

Survived I-5 gridlock in the rain to get lost on my way to find parking by the convention center. Again, managed to read the map & found my way back to a parking lot.

Arrived at Wordstock, and after again searching on a map, managed to find the "main" staircase with the author reception desk at the bottom. Wandered around looking lost but talked to some college students getting a masters in publishing by running Ooligan Press (very cool). Met my fellow panel members, Patrick Ness, L.K. Madigan, and Conrad Wesselhoeft. Moderated my first author panel in front of a quite large crowd! And gave an interview for three freshman girls who must have an awesome English teacher.

Managed to take the wrong turn trying to get back on I-84. Went around the block, made it onto the freeway and survived the drive all the way back to Eastern Oregon.

Where two dogs, one gray kitty, my family, and one very LONELY Dance kitty were waiting for me.

Anne
(who also finished her LAST revision of Exile, revised a paltry ten pages of Salvation, and is now going to read chapter 8 of Mockingjay)