Book Festival: The Humdrum Drum

One of the best treats about this year's Edinburgh International Book Festival was that my MFA classmate, Catherine Thomann was celebrating the release of her newest picture book, written by Colin McIntyre for Little Door Books, THE HUMDRUM DRUM (which you can get a peek at HERE). AND she travelled all the way from Santiago, Chile to help launch it! So, it was a wonderful opportunity for those of us still in town from the MA and MFA in Illustration and Graphic Design programs at the University of Edinburgh to gather.
     I first caught up with Nick for lunch at Brown's beforehand. He's now living in the charming Brunswick, Germany, so that was a nice treat to catch up. Alex also came in from Italy (on the left). Boris and Ruth (and Nick) and me are still in Edinburgh. The only one missing was Nadee who came through town last week. Pah! We almost had the four of us 2017 MFA Illustration students together again! We sat in the back along with Vivian French and the founders of Little Door Books, Alan and Susan, who I met in Bologna. They are such genuinely nice people, it was lovely to see them again. We enjoyed the performance of Colin and Catherine on stage as kids crinkled up red sugar paper (a.k.a. tomatoes) to throw at them. Colin is a musician, so led the kids on several songs while Catherine drew.Boris drew the whole affair.So did Ruth. Here they are with their artwork and Catherine's book.They had a good, long signing line afterwards - a wonderful opportunity to memorialize the first time this author and illustrator had ever met in person! (People always ask about that.)And the creators with their publishers giving them lots of support.People wonder why I love bookstores so much. It's hard not to when you walk in and see so many friend's books...(these are Vivian's and Catherine's at the Little Door Books display at the festival book shop).But its even better when you see those friends in person! I hope our paths come together again soon - it is a very small marble we live on, after all!