The Emmanuel’s Dream book launch party!

poster

With the hol­i­days right before, I must admit that the launch par­ty day sort of snuck up on me. I was rush­ing to get every­thing ready, had to give up on some things that I want­ed to do, and did­n’t have as much time as I would’ve liked to pre­pare. Still, I think a great time was had by all. I know I enjoyed every minute!

poster
Check out the awe­some poster they had up!

books
Look at all those books for sale!

writing buddies
Local writ­ing bud­dies, includ­ing cur­rent Emu’s Debut blog­ger (and the next one of us to launch!), Kevan Atte­ber­ry!

presentation
Dur­ing the presentation

speaking
Clutch­ing the mic for dear life, apparently.

audience
The audi­ence lis­ten­ing to my talk.

line
Can you believe this line of peo­ple wait­ing to get their books signed?

signing
Sign­ing books is even hard­er when you have to stop and pose for photos.

J. Anderson Coats
Rec­og­nize this Emu’s Debuts emer­i­tus and found­ing mem­ber? It’s J. Ander­son Coats!

a young fan
Young fans are the best fans.

Many thanks to Emmanuel for inspir­ing me; to Sean Qualls for his beau­ti­ful art­work; to my fam­i­ly for sup­port­ing me all this time; to my cri­tique group for help­ing the man­u­script rise above the slush (espe­cial­ly Dana Sul­li­van, for tak­ing these great pic­tures for me!); to my agent, Ammi-Joan Paque­tte, for not giv­ing up; to the Uni­ver­si­ty Book Store in Belle­vue and their event plan­ner, Olivia Ahl, for throw­ing such a won­der­ful par­ty; and to all the friends, writ­ers, teach­ers, par­ents, neigh­bors, and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers who took the time to come out and cheer me–and the book–on last Tues­day night. You all ROCK, and I am one extreme­ly lucky gal! xoxo

Interview w/Matthew Winner of the Let’s Get Busy podcast!

Every now and then I stum­ble on some­thing so won­der­ful that I want to add it my own list of “My Favorite Things” and share it with the world: the Let’s Get Busy pod­cast from Matthew Win­ner is one of those things. Whether you’re an author, illus­tra­tor, teacher, librar­i­an, agent, edi­tor, bookseller–if you have any­thing to do with chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture at all–this show is too good to miss. Think you don’t have time for pod­casts? I lis­ten while I’m in the car. Or while I walk the dog. Or while I clean the house. And, believe me, all of those tasks are way more enjoy­able when you have Matthew and his guests with you!
Matthew recent­ly record­ed his 100th episode of the pod­cast, and he put togeth­er a mas­sive blog and pod­cast tour to cel­e­brate. Here’s where he’s been so far:

And I’m thrilled that today is my turn to host! Matthew was kind enough to answer a few of my ques­tions, so we can all get to know him better.
LT: Hi Matthew, and wel­come! I’ve already gushed to you about how much I love your pod­cast, but I’m curi­ous to learn more. How and when did you first become inter­est­ed in doing a pod­cast like Let’s Get Busy? How did you get started?
MT: I lis­ten to a lot of pod­casts. I mean, a whole lot of pod­casts. All the time. When I’m dri­ving to work. When I’m wash­ing the dish­es. When I’m shelv­ing books. When I’m mow­ing the lawn. It’s the pri­ma­ry media I con­sume. The idea for doing a pod­cast of my own and, specif­i­cal­ly, a kidlit pod­cast just sort of popped into my head one day, took up camp, and then would­n’t leave. But it took a con­ver­sa­tion with Travis Jonker (of 100 Scope Notes) to nudge me into actu­al­ly start­ing it. He and I were talk­ing one evening dur­ing an ALA con­fer­ence in Chica­go about how much we love the insights but also those mem­o­rable vignettes that inevitably stick in your brain when­ev­er you’re in the com­pa­ny of authors or illus­tra­tors (or any­one who has some­thing to say, for that mat­ter). Travis asked me what my next big project would be and I told him that all I could think about was this idea of cap­tur­ing these sorts of con­ver­sa­tions through a loose­ly for­mat­ted pod­cast. Then he basi­cal­ly asked me when I was start­ing, and that was all it took.
LT: Some­times we just need the tini­est nudge, don’t we? (Thanks, Travis!) You sure have been busy since then. I can’t believe you start­ed less than a year and half ago, and you’re already up to 100 episodes! 
LT: How much time do you spend on the pod­cast over­all, and what’s the break­down of how that time is spent (lin­ing up guests, record­ing and edit­ing, pro­mot­ing, etc.)?
MW: Eeep. Let me try to make this as inter­est­ing as possible.
MW: I shoot for 30-minute record­ings so that I’m able to post twice a week (or 8 episodes per month). A lot of this is based on band­width lim­i­ta­tions and the cost of main­tain­ing a sub­scrip­tion on Lib­syn, a pod­cast host site. I usu­al­ly talk with each guest for about an hour total and we spend the unaired time lock­ing into a com­fort­able can­dor (or going on tan­gents and then say­ing, “Shoot! I should be record­ing this!”). Edit­ing and prep­ping the accom­pa­ny­ing blog post takes any­where between 30 and 60 min­utes. And coor­di­nat­ing sched­ules and review mate­ri­als and record­ing logis­tics over email can take upwards of 30 min­utes per sched­uled guest, but that might be over a series of weeks.
MW: So, let’s see. That’s 25 minus the cir­cum­fer­ence of Y, car­ry the 3 and sub­sti­tute 7 for X… about 2–3 hours per guest from first con­tact to pub­lished and pro­mot­ed episode.
LT: That’s a big com­mit­ment (but less than I thought–you’re fast!). What then is the hard­est part of doing the pod­cast, and how do you deal with that?
MW: The hard­est part for me is ask­ing new peo­ple to come on. It seems like every­one and their moth­er has a pod­cast nowa­days, but I’m often the first pod­cast my guests have ever appeared on or, in some cas­es, lis­tened to. And also, many of them have no idea who I am. That gets in my brain and makes me think all sorts of wonky things and then I start to psych myself out over send­ing that first con­tact email. I’ve coped with it by ask­ing each of my guests, fol­low­ing our own con­ver­sa­tions, to rec­om­mend a friend or col­league whom they think my be a good fit for the pod­cast or this inter­view for­mat. It’s worked pret­ty well for me and my guest list now reads like one great big fam­i­ly pho­to album with all sorts of zigzag­ging con­nec­tions between each of the faces.
LT: That is real­ly neat to envi­sion. So much of what we do is built on per­son­al rela­tion­ships, isn’t it? I don’t think you have any­thing to wor­ry about, though. First, kidlit peo­ple are the best peo­ple in the world, don’t you think? And sec­ond, I’m sure most authors and illus­tra­tors are thrilled by the oppor­tu­ni­ty to chat with you: you’re inter­est­ed in our work, and you give us a chance to talk about it. Just remem­ber: we’re nice, and you’re doing us a favor. There’s no need to psych your­self out! 🙂
LT: What has sur­prised you most about the podcast?
MW: Every­thing sur­pris­es me about the pod­cast. Some­times the thing that sur­pris­es me most is know­ing that any­one’s actu­al­ly lis­ten­ing. I learn some­thing new with each new per­son who comes on and by rule of thumb I allow myself space to won­der, to be excit­ed, to nerd out over process, and to ask what­ev­er comes to mind. That approach has served me well and has led to a good deal of sur­pris­es when our con­ver­sa­tions take unex­pect­ed turns. It’s how I learned that Lau­rie Keller (Arnie the Dough­nut) plays ban­jo, that Nick Bru­el (Bad Kit­ty) used to work at Books of Won­der, a land­mark chil­dren’s book­store in New York, and that Steve Light (Have You Seen My Drag­on?) works with PreSchool students!
LT: I love that every episode feels like a casu­al con­ver­sa­tion between friends, rather than an inter­view, per se. In fact, it’s my favorite thing about lis­ten­ing to them! What is your favorite thing about doing them?
MW: So, I have a blog called The Busy Librar­i­an. I start­ed it as a sort of advo­ca­cy blog for all of us teacher librar­i­ans who are all just so busy all the time. On Octo­ber 10th, 2010, I pub­lished my first post. Here is the text in its entirety:

This is a blog for busy librarians.
For those of us who feel, well, overwhelmed.
It’s a place of com­fort and, hope­ful­ly, a source of inspiration.
Here you will find the oppor­tu­ni­ty to inter­act glob­al­ly and to impact locally.
We’ll syn­er­gize moments, ideas, and activ­i­ties that will enable us to become more effec­tive librar­i­ans, more effi­cient in our libraries, and more ener­getic with our stu­dents, with­out feel­ing like things are careen­ing out of control.
So, let’s get busy!

It made per­fect sense to me to name the pod­cast as an exten­sion of the blog itself. Hence, Let’s Get Busy. My very good pal Sher­ry Gick, teacher librar­i­an at Rossville Con­sol­i­dat­ed Schools in Rossville, IN, and author of the Library Fanat­ic blog, and Nik­ki Ohs Barnes, fel­low Nerdy Book Club mem­ber and co-founder of the Vir­tu­al Book Club, met me at ALA where, just one night pre­vi­ous, Travis and I had talked about pod­cast­ing. Super excit­ed to share, I told Sher­ry and Nik­ki that I was going to start a pod­cast and that I decid­ed to call it Let’s Get Busy after my blog. They both imme­di­ate­ly broke into what they decid­ed would have to be the pod­cast sound effect… a sort of BOW-CHIKKA-WOAH-WOW that I have not to this day been able to get out of my head when­ev­er I’m about to start an inter­view. Car­ry­ing those sorts of mem­o­ries around every­where I go is def­i­nite­ly my favorite thing. And with 100 episode behind me, I’m def­i­nite­ly car­ry­ing around a lot of stories!
LT: I’m sure you are! 
LT: How do you feel your oth­er activ­i­ties (teach­ing, pre­sent­ing, writ­ing, blog­ging, Twit­ter, par­ent­ing, etc.) make the pod­cast bet­ter? And, vice ver­sa, how does the pod­cast con­tribute to those oth­er facets of your life?
MW: Oh my word! Every­thing and I mean EVERYTHING goes into the pot when it comes to mak­ing these record­ings. Books from my pic­ture book guests are typ­i­cal­ly already bed­time sta­ples with our 4‑year-old son. Teach­ing and being a teacher librar­i­an is the best and comes up over and over again on our chats because I like to share the way that the guests’ book is reach­ing kids and sup­port­ing read­ers in ways that I get to expe­ri­ence first­hand. Twit­ter is my pro­fes­sion­al learn­ing com­mu­ni­ty, but it’s also where I get to nerd out with friends over great kidlit and meet very cool peo­ple cre­at­ing very cool books in the process, many of whom I’ll invite on the pod­cast because their work sticks with me.
MW: Doing the pod­cast brings me pure joy and is or has become a part of my iden­ti­ty. And I’ve got­ten to meet a ton of real­ly cool peo­ple in the process. I’m thank­ful that our son is grow­ing up in a house sur­round­ed with beau­ti­ful pic­ture books, both on our book­shelves, and in frames hang­ing up through­out our house.
LT: Oh, I love that. Why have I nev­er thought of fram­ing pic­ture books?  (Hmmm… just in time for Christ­mas, too!)
LT: I’ve always said that I will know I’ve made it when I receive one let­ter from one child say­ing that some­thing I wrote made a pos­i­tive dif­fer­ence in his or her life. How do you define suc­cess? Do you feel like you’ve achieved it? If not, what’s left on your to-do list?
MW: I lis­ten to my guests and I lis­ten to my lis­ten­ers. The pod­cast suc­ceeds when the guests feel like they’ve found a home in our con­ver­sa­tion and when the lis­ten­ers feel like they’re in the room with us. I also try to take in the kind things peo­ple are say­ing about Let’s Get Busy or about me per­son­al­ly. Sey­mour Simon once told me that he thinks of me “like a son” and that he’s proud of me. I achieved all I ever want­ed when I pub­lished the very first episode of Let’s Get Busy. And I’m thank­ful that so many peo­ple feel moved to tell me how the pod­cast is con­nect­ing with them. Suc­cess to me is know­ing that one per­son cares about the thing you’re mak­ing, or say­ing, or cre­at­ing. And I’m one per­son that cares a great deal about what I myself am mak­ing, say­ing, and cre­at­ing. So with every episode I get to share, I’ve already achieved suc­cess before a sin­gle down­load occurs.
LT: What a won­der­ful atti­tude, Matthew! I care a great deal about what you’re mak­ing, say­ing, a cre­at­ing, too. Thanks so much for shar­ing it with us ! 


As you can see from above, Matthew calls him­self “the busy librar­i­an” for good rea­son. Here are some of the places you can find more from him:

And be sure to fol­low the rest of the Let’s Get Busy podcast/blog tour, here:

Tales from my first book launch party

decorations

Two of the worst pos­si­ble things that could hap­pen to a book event in Seat­tle hap­pened on the day of the Be a Change­mak­er launch par­ty: one of our major bridges was closed for con­struc­tion, and the sun was shin­ing! Still, an amaz­ing num­ber of ultra-ded­i­cat­ed friends and intre­pid fans braved the traf­fic night­mare and will­ing­ly (or per­haps begrudg­ing­ly) sac­ri­ficed one of the last sun­ny Sun­days we are like­ly to have for months. And I am oh-so-grate­ful to each and every one of them for it!

decorations
Look at the pret­ty decorations!
I start­ed with a brief thank you. I could have gone on for hours thank­ing every­one who played a part in this book, but I decid­ed to spare those in atten­dance and kept the list as short as possible.
presentation
Here I am giv­ing my presentation.
Then I gave a short read­ing from one of the In My Expe­ri­ence side­bars in the book. I start­ed get­ting choked up and did­n’t want to break down into ugly cry in front of all those peo­ple, so I cut it short­er than I had intend­ed. Run away!
Josie Gillett for YUP
One of the inspir­ing teens pre­sent­ing her organization.
My favorite part was when four local teens, whose orga­ni­za­tions are among those fea­tured in the book, pre­sent­ed a bit about what they do and where their groups are head­ed. They were all great speak­ers and held the audi­ence in rapt attention.
signing closeup
I signed some books.
Then, it was time to sign books! I was so afraid I would spell some­one’s name wrong, I even asked on the easy ones that I knew for sure I knew how to spell.
signing line zoomed out
I signed a lot of books!
By the end, though, my eyes were start­ing to cross. I had­n’t made any mis­takes, so I let my guard down. One of the very last peo­ple in line is one of my dear­est friends, whose name hap­pens to be EXACTLY THE SAME AS MINE. Yes, you guessed it: I spelled it wrong. For­tu­nate­ly, she has a good sense of humor, so we’ll prob­a­bly be laugh­ing about it for years to come.
Many heart­felt thanks to every­one who came and to Secret Gar­den Book Shop for host­ing. I’m gen­er­al­ly not much of a par­ty per­son, and I real­ly dis­like being the cen­ter of atten­tion. (Those giant posters of my face were a sur­prise from my hub­by… eek!) But every moment of that launch event was a treat, and the expe­ri­ence is some­thing I’ll trea­sure for the rest of my life. 

The Emu’s Debuts launch party for Be a Changemaker

Emu's Debuts bannerOne of the most reward­ing expe­ri­ences of being a debut author has been par­tic­i­pat­ing on the Emu’s Debuts group blog (for clients of Erin Murphy Lit­er­ary Agency who are in between deal and pub­li­ca­tion). Last week, my fab­u­lous friends and fel­low Emus threw me THE BEST LAUNCH PARTY EVER to cel­e­brate the upcom­ing release of BE A CHANGEMAKER! (They went a week ear­ly, since Lind­sey Lane’s EVIDENCE OF THINGS UNSEEN is releas­ing at the same time. I’ll be help­ing them cel­e­brate that launch next week!)
They were all so gen­er­ous, authen­tic, and hard-work­ing in bring­ing the dai­ly posts to life (as they are with every­thing they do!), and I was thrilled anew every morn­ing to see what they had put togeth­er. In case you missed them, please go check out their posts. They’re fun, infor­ma­tive, and inspiring!
Here’s the roundup:
On Mon­day, Lind­sey Lane (with some back­up sup­port from Tara Dair­man), post­ed Wel­come to the World: BE A CHANGEMAKER by Lau­rie Ann Thomp­son!, which includ­ed sto­ries of and inter­views with five oth­er Erin Mur­phy Lit­er­ary Agency authors who are chang­ing the world in their own mean­ing­ful ways:

Tues­day fea­tured sev­er­al videos com­piled by Megan Mor­ri­sonBE A CHANGEMAKER: Words of Wis­dom. The clips con­tain con­tri­bu­tions from fel­low Emu Debuts blog­gers offer­ing their own words of wis­dom, shar­ing quotes that moti­vate and inspire them, and giv­ing advice they wish they’d got­ten at the begin­ning of their jour­ney. Great stuff, and so per­son­al! It’s a great way to get to know these won­der­ful peo­ple a lit­tle better.
For the Wednes­day post, BE A CHANGEMAKER: Cel­e­brat­ing with Quotes!Jen­nifer Cham­b­liss Bert­man com­piled and cre­at­ed a col­lec­tion of gor­geous images fea­tur­ing quotes that inspire and moti­vate the mem­bers of the Emu’s Debuts blog team. If you want to spice up your Face­book or Pin­ter­est feeds (or your office walls!), there are some fan­tas­tic finds here. Plus, they includ­ed the expla­na­tions behind why the quotes are so mean­ing­ful for them, mak­ing them even more special.
For Thurs­day’s post, Pen­ny Park­er Kloster­mann, gave read­ers a sneak pre­view of Be a Change­mak­er with excerpts of the first 25 pages as well as the event plan­ning chap­ter. Her post, BE A CHANGEMAKER: A Tool for Change, gives a sense of how the book can be used as a tool by indi­vid­u­als, teams, and classrooms.
On Fri­dayTama­ra Ellis Smith closed out the par­ty with Music to Be A Change­mak­er By, an inspi­ra­tional and moti­vat­ing Spo­ti­fy playlist of songs rec­om­mend­ed by the Emu’s Debuts blog­gers, along with the expla­na­tions of why they includ­ed them. Span­ning gen­res and emo­tions, you’re sure to find some­thing of inter­est here–I know I did!
I’m so grate­ful to the awe­some authors at Emu’s Debuts! Thanks to them, the Be a Change­mak­er pre-launch week was bet­ter than I ever could have imag­ined. I’m look­ing for­ward to each and of every one of their debuts–coming soon!

It’s the Be a Changemaker launch party!

BE A CHANGEMAKER cover

Please come celebrate the release of my first book:

BE A CHANGEMAKER cover

Sun­day, Sep­tem­ber 14th, at 2 p.m.

Seat­tle Cre­ative Arts Center
2601 NW Mar­ket St
Seat­tle, WA 98107
(Click here for direc­tions and park­ing information.

Eat, drink, min­gle, hear more about the book from the author, and—best of all—meet some local teens who are already chang­ing the world!

I hope to see you there!

If you can’t make it and would still like a signed copy, you can order from Secret Gar­den Books here (please indi­cate how you’d like it per­son­al­ized in the “oth­er notes about your order” field and leave an extra week or two for delivery).

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