Anyway. I made a last-minute trip to a conference a couple of weeks ago, and nerves drove me to some night-before skirt-making:
Simple a-line skirt, using soft stretch corduroy, then a cluster of wool felt flowers handsewn on. I love felt, I love colour, I love handsewing; this skirt was true simple pleasure.
Back in December I tried my hand at this twirly skirt pattern for CP, and while I still am Dudley at following a pattern, all was well enough to wear in the end, and much twirling was done in preparation for her first Broadway outing.
Thank you so much to all of you who have supported 8th Grade Superzero, it is very much appreciated.
If you're interested, there's a video about the inspirations behind the book here, and if you really want to get tired of me, there are some links to interviews in the News sidebar on my author site.
I did my first talk with middle- and high-schoolers, they asked great questions and shared a love for books and writing that was a real boost after some discouraging days in the publishing world. Thank goodness for authors, bloggers, and advocates who know what's up; check out a must-read by Neesha Meminger on authenticity of representations of people of colour in literature, Paradigm Shifts and more over at the always amazing ColorOnline. And if you care about children's books, education, honesty and justice in publishing, and being an "agent of positive change", be sure to join Readers Against Whitewashing, and spend *lots* of time at Mitali's Fire Escape, Multiculturalism Rocks, Reading in Color, and Paper Tigers, just to name a few. Oh, and Colleen Mondor breaks it down so well. (Seriously. Those are just a few of the amazing blogs and book-related sites out there. For more links, click here.)
I'm continuing to update my links to sites and organizations that are offering support to Haiti; it's also in the sidebar, to the right. We've got a long way to go.
