Sunday Silliness

The prompt today at Sunday Scribblings is “pilgrimage,” and that’s what I did this weekend.

Those of you who participate in the WBBT/SBBT know that sometimes you JUST LOVE an author, so the format of the Summer/Winter Blog Blast Tour enables you to ask them to talk to you — about their books, about their lives, what’s playing in their iPod, and what authors they’re reading. Barring MotherReader’s unfortunate restraining order1 for the Mo Willems incident(s), (*!!!*) most of us keep our fangirling and stalkerish tendencies under wraps. *cough* You’ll be gratified to hear that I have taken stalking to a whole new level! Wonderland had so much fun interviewing her for WBBT this past November that yesterday I stalked author Elizabeth Wein all the way to her change ringing rehearsal at an ancient cathedral, and then to her house! And she’s very, very funny!

Okay, it was supposed to be a short visit — as in, I’ll just hop a train early in the morning and bring her a few goodies from the United States. After all, those of us who live abroad have to keep each other in Hershey’s, right? But the short visit turned into two meals and a 12-hour tour of Perthshire, conversing on a whole wealth of topics that continued until literally minutes before the doors on our eight o’clock train closed.

Of course, there were the whole “Liz Is Trying To Kill Me” episodes, which included a dizzying spiral stairwell that was exactly as wide as my shoulders — and getting more narrow as it rose, a river so high she called it a “death trap” and wet rocks slicked with moss, but I bribed her with 20 pounds of candy to let me live, and so we went home. We will just draw a veil over how dorky I looked crawling up the rocks on my hands and knees. Yes. Drawing a veil. Now.

Ahem.

To conclude: real life authors are lovely people, and should you have a chance to meet one in his or her own home environment, they will often feed you, and let their children take blurry, close-up pictures of you. It’s a lot of fun. (Pictures to follow; Flickr is uploading at the speed of a wheezing asthmatic camel in a sand slide.)

Reminder via Children’s Writers & Illustrators Market newsletter:

It’s the 78th Annual Writer’s Digest Writing Competition! Submit your children’s or young adult fiction! The reading fee is GRAND PRIZE: $3,000 cash and a trip to New York City to meet with editors or agents. Writer’s Digest will fly you and a guest to The Big Apple, where you’ll spend three days and two nights in the publishing capital of the world. While you’re there, a Writer’s Digest editor will escort you to meet and share your work with four editors or agents! Plus, you’ll receive a free Diamond Publishing Package from Outskirts Press.

Entry Deadline: May 15, 2009.

The most fun about this contest is that it’s open to everyone. Check out the small print at Writer’s Digest.

1. We all know that’s a joke, right? RIGHT!?!?↩