Kerry Madden Lunsford's ERNESTINE'S MILKY WAY

My friend Kerry Madden Lunsford has a new picture book out, illustrated by Emily Sutton, called ERNESTINE'S MILKY WAY. Once again, Kerry pulls us into the beauty and charm of the Appalachians, where my heart resides too. Both Kerry and Emily stopped by to talk about it... e: What is your creative process/medium, can you walk us through it?
Kerry: This is probably more of a question for Emily, but I have to say I loved hearing her talk to the students about using thick and thin brushes, toothbrushes, sponges etc - and showing them the early sketches, the smaller paintings, the sketchbook, and the way the Hundred Acre Wood inspired Ernestine's own journey through the Smoky Mountains. Earlier in this month in Southern California, we set up mini-galleries on our school visits so the students could see her work, and they loved it. She told them she's been drawing since she was old enough to hold a pencil, and this was very inspiring to them. My process/medium - long walks, listening, story-catching, interviewing, staring at landscapes, meditation.

e: What was your path to publication?
Kerry: I wrote journalism and then plays, and then I began to write an autobiographical novel, OFFSIDES, about growing up a coach's daughter. After it was published, I wrote an American Girl book on catching stories and poems called WRITING SMARTS. I then wrote the Smoky Mountain Trilogy - GENTLE'S HOLLER, LOUISIANA'S SONG, JESSIE'S MOUNTAIN, and those books led me to meet Ernestine Edwards Upchurch and to return to the mountains again and again. (Note: CLICK HERE to see Kerry Madden featured for her other books on dulemba.com.) Those books also led me to write UP CLOSE HARPER, which is how I came to live in Alabama and California. While interviewing storyteller, Kathryn Tucker Windham for the Harper Lee biography, I was inspired to write NOTHING FANCY ABOUT KATHRYN & CHARLIE, which my daughter, Lucy, illustrated. Then I decided to write the story of Ernestine delivering milk to her neighbors and after about 100 drafts, I began to find the threads.
e: Is there a unique or funny story behind the creation of this story?
Kerry: Ernestine said to me the first year I met her, "If you're going to write about our mountains your California family needs to learn to spare you! And I have a cabin you can use to write." So I took Norah to that cabin up on Johnson Gap in Maggie Valley and I wrote and I took pictures of Norah as a six-year-old in the mountains.I also remembered how my daughter, Lucy, as a child, responded to me when I told her, "Be careful Lucy walking on that tall curb. You could fall and hurt yourself." She turned around and yelled, "Hey! Am I two or am I four? I'm a big girl!" And she kept right on going. e: What do you think makes an illustration magical, what I call "Heart Art” - the sort that makes a reader want to come back to look again and again?
Kerry: What a great question! Every page of Emily's gorgeous work contains "Heart Art." A little boy in Maggie Valley looked at Emily's painting of the Smoky Mountains right before Ernestine goes on her journey in the early morning, and he got so excited and said, "Hey! Those are our mountains. I know those mountains. They're our mountains!" e: How do you advertise yourself?
Kerry: I keep an active Facebook Page and Instagram page. My daughter, Lucy, created a new website for me and said, "Mom, you've to get out of 2005." I set up my tour with indie bookstores because I know they will hand-sell my book if it's right for them. I find self-promotion difficult, so I balance by trying to my promote and celebrate my author/illustrator friends too. I did make a trailer for Ernestine of kids making butter, and it was done with love from students and from Norah too. e: What is your favorite or most challenging part of being a creator?
Kerry: I struggle with my time and the many demands made on it. Some of my family members are facing serious illnesses, and I can sometimes allow worry eat up my energy. I also kind of have two lives - one in California and one in Alabama, so there is that juggle too. But when I just breathe and walk and do my own work first, no matter where I am, everything always falls into place.
e: Is there something in particular about this story you hope readers will take away with them, perhaps something that isn’t immediately obvious?
Kerry: One editor said, "Ernestine is five and doing this job for her mother? I'm very nervous about that. Could she be older?" And I thought, but that's not the story. She really was five-years-old. And so I hope this story is one that celebrates kids exploring and finding their own journeys and discoveries without adults hovering (and I certainly did my fair share of hovering regarding my own kids).
e: What are you working on next or what would be your dream project?
Kerry: I would love to write a book about my dog, Olive,and have Emily illustrate it and perhaps write a sequel to ERNESTINE'S MILKY WAY and have Emily illustrate that too.
I hope we get to do more books together. I'm going to start playing with those picture book ideas this summer. I am also finishing the edits on an adult novel now, HOP THE POND, and two children's novels: MILLIE G & VULCAN and WEREWOLF HAMLET. One picture book is making the rounds and racking up rejections called GEORGIA IVY AND THE OLD PUMP ORGAN, a tall tale. e: You know I can't wait to see them - I'm a fan!

Kerry Madden's visit!

     So in this strange new cyber world of ours, I have so many friends, good friends, who I've never met in person. My friends are scattered all over the country, even around the world. (It's heck for throwing parties!) So, it's such a treat when I finally get to hang out with them in person.
     The last two days I had just such an opportunity when Kerry Madden wrapped up her book tour for the third book in her Maggie Valley Trilogy, "Jessie's Mountain."
     Kerry and her daughter Norah joined me at the family cabin where we picked blackberries, talked about Appalachian Folklore, talked about how our worlds merge in so many places, how the mountains pull at us both like a magnet we can't resist. Basically, we talked our fool heads off. It was so great.
     Thursday we took a quick tour of Copperhill, Tennessee - the site of my first novel. My favorite little old lady (doesn't act it) and well-spring of knowledge for my books, Doris, met us for B-B-Q. Norah got to straddle the famous line with a foot in each state. (I discussed the politics surrounding that line during the recent Georgia draught here.)
     Then we headed to FoxTale Bookshoppe down in Woodstock, Georgia (what a cute town!) where Kerry had the last visit of her tour. And what a send-off it was! She had an enormous crowd of talented and focused kids show up for her workshop. Jackie, Karen, and Ellen (store owners) obviously have a very close relationship with the children and families who gather in their store. It just had that tangible vibe - y'know how some bookstores do?
     Kerry played the CD of her main character's songs (Livy Two), put to music by her unbelievably talented sister-in-law, Tomi Lunsford. I dare you to go listen and not be swept away to a simpler time...
     Anyhow, we headed to a small coffee-house to unwind afterwards. There, I checked my cell phone for messages...
     212 area code? That's New York. That can only be one person - my agent!! "CALL ME!!" she says. Oh GADS!! Yup - she had some GREAT news which I will share in detail soon! Just leave it to say I couldn't have been with better friends when I made that call. Kerry, Norah and I squealed together and split a brownie!
     And then my lap-top started fritzing out.
     It's been proven many times in my life - when I experience extreme emotion - the electronics around me tend to . . . explode. Sometimes literally. When Kerry's laptop started acting up too, we decided it was real and we'd better keep me away from her laptop ... and the espresso machine!! Gads.
     Anyhow - Kerry is the most amazingly warm, wonderful, talented person, and her daughter is a fairy in disguise. What a wonderful, and all too short visit.
     Learn more about Kerry and her books at KerryMadden.com.

Blog Book Tour for Kerry Madden!

Today, I am pleased to introduce Kerry Madden, author of Gentle's Holler and the just released follow-up, Louisiana's Song. Kerry and I have much in common including a mutual love for all things Appalachian. In Gentle's Holler I love the strong sense of place Kerry portrays, transporting you to the beautiful smoky mountains and Maggie Valley with all their charms and spirit. I'm thrilled to be able to revisit in Louisiana's Song.



Congratulations on the release of "Louisiana's Song" (Viking), the follow-up to "Gentle's Holler" (which I loved). In this second book, we follow the story of Livy Two. Is this eleven year old shaped after you or somebody you know?

Thanks, Elizabeth! Livy Two was inspired by my sister-in-law, Tomi Lunsford, a Nashville songwriter, and the third oldest of thirteen children. I tried to imagine what it was like for her to grow up one of thirteen kids and be a songwriter. Livy Two is also a little of my love of books…

Now, I know you’re based in California. How did you come to write about the Smoky Mountains?

I lived in ten states growing up…and I lived in North Carolina as a small child and later moved to East Tennessee in high school when my father started coaching for the Tennessee Volunteers. I soon learned that kids always went mountains for everything – hikes, retreats, romance, field trips. I fell in love with the mountains – and in 2001, at a dark and desperate writing time (ghostwriting, penning shadow soap operas where I had to write garbage like “My, that bathrobe looks very familiar” …I was also writing health articles like “how to stay healthy if you sell insurance”) Anyhow, I made a decision to write a children’s novel and set it in the most beautiful place in the world just to save my sanity. I also wanted to write it with love...

You catch the flavor of the area so well. What do you especially love about the region and try to portray in your books?


I read CHRISTY by Catherine Marshall in high school, and that inspired me to go teach English in China in a very remote village after college. Then I read Lee Smith as a young mother, and her books were a huge comfort and inspiration – FAIR AND TENDER LADIES and ORAL HISTORY, especially. I married a man, Kiffen Lunsford, whose great uncle was a songcatcher in the Smokies, Bascom Lamar Lunsford, and I have to say COALMINER’S DAUGHTER broke my heart, too, so it was a culmination of so many things. I also grew up drawing pictures of big families. I love the language, the music, the way folks talk – my ears perk up in the mountains, and I just want to soak up the words. I miss in living in the South. I ran away from it (Knoxville) and went as far away as I could – all the way to China with my husband our first year of marriage – and yet, I go back to the South every day in my writing.

Do you think growing up as the daughter of a football coach (but not that football coach) and moving around so much, contributed to you being a writer now?

On each moving day, I was the kid who went kicking and screaming to the new football town, but I know now it was my training to be a writer. My father would order me in the car (I was sulking on the curb or crying in the empty house), “Cut the dramatics! You’ll forget all about these people! You want to stay in the same town your whole life? What kind of life is that?” Out of pure defiance, I vowed I would never forget and my childhood became my football novel, OFFSIDES, about growing up a freak on the gridiron – a little like THE GREAT SANTINI with a football backdrop. We had to dress in team colors and we were Panthers, Demon Deacons, Volunteers, Cyclones…but my dad always did say, “Follow your dream!” and my mother got us library cards and told us things would be great because we were the children of a football coach. And sometimes, they were…
Read Kerry's beautiful essay I AM NOT JOHN MADDEN’S DAUGHTER.


Do you have any book signing tours planned for the release of "Louisiana's Song?"

Yes, I’m doing lots of reading and signings here in Southern California this month with mountain music and story-swapping. Then later this summer and again in the fall, I’ll be going to back to North Carolina and Tennessee to do writing workshops with kids. I set up my GENTLE’S HOLLER tour as writing workshops for kids, and I met some wonderful young writers and teachers and librarians. Thank you for these great questions, Elizabeth!

Go read more about Kerry and Louisiana's Song during her blog book tour this week. She's with me today, Dotti Enderle tomorrow, Alan Gratz on Wednesday, Kim Norman on Thursday, and Ruth McNally Barshaw on Saturday.

Jessie's Mountain by Kerry Madden

     Wippee!! Today I'd like to announce the release of Kerry Madden's latest novel, "Jessie's Mountain!" Go Kerry, go Kerry!
     "Jessie's Mountain" is the third installment in Kerry's Maggie Valley trilogy which began with the hauntingly lovely "Gentle's Holler." Read my interview with Kerry after the release for the second in the trilogy, "Louisiana's Song."

NOTHING FANCY ABOUT KATHRYN & CHARLIE by Kerry Madden - Guest Post and Two Huge Giveaways Including a Writing Workshop!!

Kerry Madden is the author of some of my favorite books set in Appalachia (GENTLE'S HOLLER, etc.) and of southern creators such as Harper Lee. She has a lyrical soul when it comes to relaying the stories and relationships of southern folk. And Nothing Fancy is no exception. Kerry is here today to share her thoughts...

     I came to write Nothing Fancy About Kathryn & Charlie by accident. To put it very simply, Kathryn Tucker Windham was a white storyteller, and Charlie Lucas was a black folk artist, and they were best friends who lived next door to each other in Selma, Alabama. They met when Kathryn was 81 and Charlie was 49. I’d given my UAB students an assignment to write a picture book about friendship. We’d been reading James Marshall’s George & Martha stories, and Kathryn and Charlie reminded me of George and Martha in their playful silliness, curiosity about the world, and deep respect and affection for each other. And since I was making my students write a picture book, I figured I should try to write too – maybe even show them it was done. Ha.
     Charlie under a portrait he did of Kathryn      It took me two years to shape the story, long after that class ended and many more drafts. It also took taking a picture book/storyboarding workshop with my daughter, Lucy, from the wonderful picture book writer, Ann Whitford Paul, in Los Angeles, whose book, Writing Picture Books, is the text I teach with regularly. Eventually, I wrote the book, and Lucy illustrated it in the garage that my husband, Kiffen made into her art studio. One of my favorite illustrations of Lucy’s is the Spanish moss page when Kathryn and Charlie go for a drive in the cemetery. She cut up an old green sweater to create the Spanish moss hanging from the trees and used real bark from our tree outside. She wanted to shape all her illustrations the way Charlie approached his sculptures and painting – finding art in all kinds of places and materials.      But to go back to the very beginning, I met Kathryn Tucker Windham when I was writing the biography of Harper Lee (Viking) and here is a little of that story when I visited her at her home in Selma, Alabama in 2007 with my husband, Kiffen, that was published in Five Points: A Journal of Literature & Art in 2008. That visit planted the seed because I just loved her on sight.

     I ask Kathryn about Harper Lee and when she read To Kill A Mockingbird, and Kathryn says, “She’s delightful. Fun to be with. . . I don’t remember when I read it, but it’s a wonderful book. When she nominated me to the Alabama Academy of Honor, I was shocked. I still am shocked. I met her when I was inducted, and we’ve been friends for about five years. She’s so much fun. Nobody knows this. Her sister, Miss Alice Lee, is a lovely woman.”
     I tell her the story that I had heard about Miss Alice Lee when she was on the committee to select a minister for the Methodist Church. One man’s name came up and all Miss Alice said to the committee was, “I’m too old to be preached to by a fool.”
     Kathryn bursts into laughter, and we stand up to stretch. It’s been an afternoon of stories and sweet tea. We go outside to visit Charlie Lucas’s art in her backyard. Charlie is Kathryn’s best friend, and he lives next door and together their two backyards have bloomed into his sculpture garden. His work is everything from wheels to ironing boards to shovels shaped into faces and bodies with secrets and stories behind each piece. On the garage hang four long ironing board faces, all coveting something. Kathryn says, “One of those ironing board sisters has had a baby, but they’re not saying who. There’s the baby above them. The judge will decide.”
     We take some more pictures of the sculpture garden, and soon it is time to say good-bye. Kathryn says with a big smile, “Come on back anytime! And bring your mother too.” She addresses this to Kiffen as we’d told her what a storyteller she was after raising thirteen children. She waves until we drive out of sight.
     The red Alabama sun sinks in the sky behind us, and I recall the storyteller’s Donald Davis’ quote: "How do you kill Grandma? Don't tell any stories about her. If one generation passes without telling and hearing stories about family, it's as if those people and events never existed." I think of the story Kathryn told us of an old man who was listening to her storytelling at the National Storytelling Festival, and how it brought back so many memories of his own boyhood. He had been estranged for years from his brother, but after listening to her he called his brother right there in the storytelling tent. I think of her how she described her father, a man who told her when she was growing up, “Don’t you ever get involved with things – it’s the people in this world who are important.” He told her it wasn’t the “three R’s of reading, writing, and arithmetic” that mattered. He said, “You need the 4 L’s. Listening, learning, laughing, and loving.”

     So Kathryn was irresistible to me as a subject. I kept visiting her after I moved to Alabama, and I met Charlie too. I sent her drafts of my storybook, and she gave me notes to fix what I’d got wrong. Eventually, Mockingbird Publishers published Nothing Fancy About Kathryn & Charlie in 2013.
     And in the summer of 2013, I traveled with my daughters, Lucy and Norah, (and dog, Olive) to rural Alabama libraries across the state to offer art and writing workshops for children with creative grant from UAB to cover travel expenses. We took Lucy’s original art from the book to share with it to the young artists, and together we read them the story of the friendship between storyteller, Kathryn Tucker Windham and folk artist, Charlie Lucas of Selma, Alabama.
     Kerry and Lucy      In addition to Lucy’s art and our combined storytelling, we also brought our own found objects – buttons, strings, twine, material, markers, glue, shells, sticks, paper bags, popsicle sticks, art paper – and we encouraged the kids to make their own art. Much the way Charlie Lucas makes art out of objects found in dumpsters, trashcans, and fields, we suggested to the children that they look around at everyday objects and see the potential of making art.
     Kathryn's tomatoes by Lucy      From our workshops, the children made trees out of all the found objects. Some made cherry, plum apple trees with red, purple, and green buttons while others made coconut trees with little brown buttons and strips of material. Some kids built popsicle-stick tree-houses in the branches, while others made tire swings out of twine and rubber bands. We talked of how trees carry stories, and we asked them to share their stories and look for art and stories in unexpected places just like Kathryn and Charlie did. Other kids drew their hearts, and some of even drew hearts in trees. We hung some of the children’s in the libraries we visited.
     Charlie by Lucy The most challenging workshop was in Monroeville, Alabama when 100 kids showed up to the workshop. The librarian, parents, and volunteers jumped in to help us get the art supplies to each kid, which meant two buttons per kids instead of a seemingly endless supply. The librarian, Bunny Hines, declared it “a goat-roping,” and later, the children’s author, Eve Bunting, told me that should be my next storybook. It was a magical time traveling around Alabama with my girls meeting young artists and librarians all over the state from Trussville to Birmingham to Scottsboro to Greensboro in Hale County to Selma to Gadsden to Choctaw County to Fairhope to Monroeville to Dothan ending in the summer in Alabaster.
     Here are more links to the trip and how the story came back to be written, but it was a magical summer to get to travel with my girls and my dog to these wonderful old libraries all over Alabama and get kids to make trees and tell and write stories. I also felt like Kathryn was there in the face of every laughing kid, since she passed away before the book was published. I miss her everyday.
     Mockingbird Publishing
     A Tale of Two Friends
     The Storyteller and the Artist
     Professor spent summer sharing lessons of friendship
     Nothing Fancy Blog Tour (with pictures)
     Kerry's writing nook...
GIVEAWAYS!!!
We have TWO giveaways with three potential winners this week! Kerry is generously giving away two copies of NOTHING FANCY along with a copy of GENTLE'S HOLLER Must live in the continental US to win - enter below!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
GIVEAWAY 2!!!
Kerry is also offering a SKYPE writing workshop. WOW! Please only enter this one if you are a writer and can put a small workshop together! Since it's via Skype it can happen anywhere!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Kerry Madden's WEREWOLF HAMLET

My good friend Kerry Madden has a new book out, and it's a book of her heart. I can't wait to read it! She dropped by to talk about... My new children’s novel, Werewolf Hamlet, is coming out into the world. It’s my most personal novel aside from Offsides, which came out, almost thirty years ago in 1996 and was a New York Public Library Pick for the Teen Age in 1997. My older kids were six and eight when Offsides was published, and I remember Doug Dutton of Dutton’s books in Brentwood kneeling down to help my son with his necktie. Flannery wanted to wear a tie to my signing at Dutton’s, and my husband was driving from his teaching job in South Central to meet us, so he couldn’t do it, and I couldn’t figure out how to do it on our rush to drive to the Westside in LA traffic from Silver Lake.
      I still don’t know how to tie a necktie, but I remember thinking – remember this – as I watched Doug kneeling and looping Flannery’s tie in a perfect knot.
     I remember Lucy saying, “Why don’t you sign me a book? Huh? You sign one to everyone else. I want my own book.”
     So, I signed her one, and she drew a self-portrait in the book.
     How was it all three decades ago? Time is slippery, the years piling up one after another. Now Lucy is married, a mother, and the executive director of a preschool with three branches in Chicago. We have a trans son, Bo, who was born two years after Offsides was published, and while I was pregnant in 1998, I received a letter saying Offsides was going out of print. I felt like such a giant, broke, and pregnant failure. I couldn’t even afford to buy copies of my novel about to be pulped. It was also the scorching summer Mark McGwire was hitting a gazillion homeruns, and Flannery looked at my calves while baseball blared and said with pride, “Mama, look! You have Mark McGwire calves. So cool!”       Werewolf Hamlet is my ninth book, coming out with Charlesbridge Moves, Eileen Robinson’s new imprint for reluctant readers. I learned that Charlesbridge Publishing keeps books in print and for that I am grateful. I don’t have to strike it hot within three years before the book gets pulped. All my books, although well reviewed, went out of print due to lack of sales.
      But Werewolf Hamlet is a story I didn’t want to write. I didn’t want the story to be mine. I wanted a different version, and it began very differently when I wrote the first sentence in 2008. It was going to be a lark of a novel, a romp, and a way of capturing my children’s childhoods. I wrote it first as a diary, and then an editor warned me that Diary of a Wimpy Kid would kill it, so to write it as a traditional novel, because she loved the premise and the first draft. Then she left the publishing house, and it was inherited by a new editor, who didn’t love it. I rewrote it some more, and it was rejected by one and all in 2014, so that was that.
     In 2013, addiction came to our family. It was the monster at the door. It didn’t just knock. It barged in and took root - deep, ugly, gnarled roots. For the last twelve years, we have been on a journey with our son, who currently makes his home beneath a bypass in Silver Lake. In the beginning, when I protested to a counselor – “How can I have a kid who is an addict? I write books for kids! My son was my editor and inspiration for so many stories. So were my other kids.”
     Unimpressed, the counselor shrugged. “Write the book for the kids who need it.”      I resisted for a while, but since nothing I was doing (trying to rescue-fix-save, etc.) was making one bit of difference in “helping” Flannery, I took an early version of Werewolf Hamlet, and I began to write all the things that scared me about the freight train of addiction, and I channeled it all into a ten-year-old, determined to save his big brother. I put a Post-it note on my desk that said, “It’s for kids!” to keep my saggy-sad-sack mom voice out of it.
     I found a brilliant editor, Karen Boss, who understood on a deep and intrinsic level what I was trying to do, and she helped me find the heart of the novel. I’m both delighted and terrified as we approach pub date. Instead of doing a traditional reading for the launch, I’ve asked two young actors to play the brothers in some of the “interlude” scenes that take place between each chapter called “Conversations with Liam in the Night.” I wrote these interludes when my dear friend, Jennifer Richard Jacobson, told me “There are no quiet moments in your novel.” She was right, so I decided to write dialogues between the brothers, ages ten and seventeen. I found these so effortless to write because I imagined these brothers talking to each other, arguing, insulting each other with the “Shakespearian Insulter” while the younger one, Augus Gettlefinger, tries to rescue-fix-save his beloved big brother, Liam, who is rapidly changing and sneaking in and out at night.
     Someone asked me what I hope kids take away from this book, and I hope that if they learn anything, it’s that they don’t have to save anybody today. They can still love and care for the person who is causing them pain, but they still get to live their own lives and find out what they love to do whether it’s putting on plays or making movies or playing baseball or painting or drawing. Werewolf Hamlet is the book I didn’t want to write, but it’s the book I needed to write, and maybe it will offer solace or comfort to a kid who trying to figure things out and make them laugh too. It’s my love letter to my children, whom I love so deeply, and to the city where we raised them, Los Angeles, where my heart will forever reside, even more so after the devastating fires.
     As a lonely and awkward child, I read tons of books to feel less alone, and I hope Werewolf Hamlet makes readers feel less alone in the world too.

The book is already getting great reviews and an award!
*BOOKLIST gave it a starred review and says that is is:
a story that is rich in wise insights, comical and emotionally wrenching moments in turn...

It has been awarded a JUNIOR GUILD LIBRARY SELECTION GOLD STANDARD, 2025
BRAVO! Photo by Sonya Sones

Decatur Book Festival '09 - Wrap Up

FRIDAY
The whirlwind for the Decatur Book Festival begins on Friday morning for me every year. Friday is the day visiting authors/illustrators visit schools, or the students are trekked in to see the authors. This year I had the pleasure of escorting my friend, author/illustrator Katie Davis, to the Decatur Recreation Center where she spoke to about 400 preschoolers - that's all.

WOWSA! She was wonderful of course and the kids loved learning about WHO HOPS and KINDERGARTEN ROCKS, which was given out to every new kindergarten student in the state of Georgia last year!
     Katie and I went to lunch afterwards at The Brick Store Pub (with author Laurel Snyder) and then to quickly pop around the square so she could get her bearings... that was the plan anyhow, we got held up... First - Squash Blossoms got in their Fall merchandise... (here's Stan holding my new bag ...) and then as we walked back by the Brick... well, see, there's this magic table out front. You sit there for a while and everybody you ever wanted to run into in Decatur will walk by. The inverse is also true - you will almost always see somebody you want to say 'hi' to sitting at the magic table. This time it was Dave Shallengberger of Little Shop of Stories; and John Hulme and Michael Wexler, authors of The Seems. So, we joined 'em for a beer. True to its magic, we were soon joined by Judy Schachner (Skippyjon Jones) and her husband, Bob; Diane Capriola (Little Shop), and several more people who just dropped by to say 'hi.' MAGIC I tell ya...
     Friday evening we celebrated the opening of Storybook Look: Illustrations by Southern Artists, at the Art Institute of Atlanta, Decatur campus. (I'm thrilled they used my art from Paco and the Giant Chile Plant to feature the show!) Several of the illustrators were there - Me, Rick Spears, Ami Blackford, Laura Knorr, and Mark Braught. The show was beautiful and speeches were made by those in charge at the AIA (thank you Kim Resnik and Elizabeth Wilson!) and Southern Arts Federation (thank you Teresa Hollins, Jenna Knight and Gerri Combs for everything). I also said some words about my friend, Liz Conrad - she would have been so thrilled. It was a fun but emotional launch to a beautiful show. (It will be at the AIA for one month before moving on to its next locale.)
     Here's what the show looks like from the sidewalk. Liz's work on the left, Rick's and mine on the right.


     Here are Rick Spears, Teresa Hollingsworth (SAF), Me, Gerri Combs (SAF), and Ami Blackford.

     Here are Mark and Laura.

     And Vicky and Aliya (with Teresa in the background).

     Me with my art from Glitter Girl - ahhhhh!!!!

     And who should show up? None other than award-winning illustrator E.B. Lewis, illustrator of The Secret World of Walter Anderson written by Hester Bass (look for my interview on Friday!). Several of us went to Twain's afterwards and I got to enjoy learning more about this talented man.

     Great pic of Laura and Donna.


SATURDAY
     Saturday I helped set up our SCBWI Southern Breeze tent for the festival. The weather was so nice and cool!
     Here is Connie Fleming, me and Susan Spain (author of "The 12 Days of Christmas" which I am currently illustrating).

     We got a double tent this year - right next to the children's stage and across from Little Shop of Stories again. Perfect! I was on for the first shift - 9-11am. And wowsa, when the crowds showed up it was impressive! Susan turned on the bubble machine as the parade landed and you would have thought we were showering them with chocolate - they were SO HAPPY!!!!

     And man, our booth was full ALL DAY. We sold almost half our stock just in a few hours - unbelievable! And the authors/illustrators who were present signed books like crazy!
     It was nearly impossible to get out of there to go grab lunch. But finally, Donna Bowman, Robyn Hood Black, Katie Davis and I headed to Leon's Full Service. Apparently, they have a magic table outside too (same owners, hmmmm....) as we were soon joined by Judy and Bob again, and Loren Long, and their sales rep for Penguin. And if you can believe this, we left them to run back and see Kate DiCamillo on stage! She was hilarious!

     I saw Jon Schieszka speak at the teen stage - which could be double the size it was - isn't that GREAT news!? Teen readers - yay!
     Then another good friend came in town for the festivities, Kerry Madden. Remember she and her daughter were with me when I learned the news that I had sold SOAP? What a great day!
     After hanging with Kerry and Katie a bit, I went to see my bud, Jessica Handler, on a panel with Kaylie Jones talking about memoirs. (They were GREAT together - it was a wonderful session!)
     Saturday NIGHT was the author party at FEAST (hubbie's and my favorite restaurant on the planet). And woosie what an affair it was! Hangin' with E.B. Lewis; Hester Bass; Eric Litwin of Pete the Cat, I Love My White Shoes; heads of the Margaret Mitchell House and Literacy Volunteers of Atlanta; Jon Schieszka; Jarrett Krosoczka and his family (baby Zoe is SO cute!); Natalie Dupree; Jessica and Katie and Judy again... you get the idea. We was ridin' high and havin' a fine 'ol time! And we weren't done yet...


SUNDAY
     I had no idea what to expect. I was the opening act on the children's stage - warming up the crowd for Judy Schachner and the participants in the Skippyjon Jones parade. My entire family and many friends came (thank you guys!) so there would be bodies in case nobody else showed...


Um.


     WOW. The tent was PACKED. Completely. Yah, yah, I know it was for Judy - but I'll borrow her crowd any day!

     It was my FIRST public reading of SOAP, SOAP, SOAP ~ JABON, JABON, JABON! I had a BLAST! It was HOT, really, really HOT, and my mic kept slipping - but everybody seemed to have a good time and I received wonderful feedback. And I must say - SOAP works GREAT as a read-aloud, and with a crowd. YAY!!!!


     Hubbie and I met the fam for pizza at Zucca - and blessed air conditioning!!! Then we rushed back to join the crowd enjoying Robyn talk about WOLVES and Donna talk about BIG CATS.

Here's Donna signing her book next to her Sabretooth Lion skull!

     And I started fading...just a little longer...
     We stayed for Katie Davis (THE CURSE OF ADDY McMAHON), Donny Seagraves (watch for an upcoming interview with Donny about her new book GONE FROM THESE WOODS), and Laurel (ANY WHICH WALL) talk about mid-grade novels.

And that was it for this tired pup. I used up every bit of adrenalin I had. Now I'm home with a... a... *achooooo* ...bug. Pooey. And trying to summarize the incredible weekend in coherent sentences...
     People I missed... Dinner with Kathleen Duey and Vicky Alvear Shecter (me bud!). Terra McVoy (PURE) on stage with Lauren Myracle. David Lubar. (Dang! How'd I miss him!?)
     People I saw EVERYWHERE, all day, every day, working their BUMS OFF: Diane Capriola and the staff of Little Shop of Stories; Donna, Connie, Susan, etc. of Southern Breeze; Darren Wang and Tom Bell of the Decatur Book Festival; and many of the 500 Volunteers it took to pull off the event. Wowsa did it come together in a magical way. Seeing people, children, so excited about books and reading will glue a permanent smile to your face. Thank you, thank you to everybody for making the Decatur Book Festival the 4th largest in the nation - but the #1 festival EVER to my mind! HUGS!!!!
     P.S. - I know y'all took more pics I'd love to share! Please email them to me at elizabeth at dulemba dot com and I'll post them here - thanks!