More TLA

Of course, speaking on the Cultural Diversity Panel was only part of the fun. It was nice to get it over with early, so I could relax and learn the ropes of conference-attending, with my more experienced roommate, Linda Joy Singleton.

She told me to get some mailing boxes. I'd need them. Books are heavy (even if they're light mysteries or whimsical picture books.) And since we were flying home (after my 36 hour scenic bus ride down there, an airplane sounded quite inviting), we had to watch our weight.

Free books? I like free books. It was a wonderful experience - collecting arcs from the various publishers' booths. Pens, erasers and various sweets were also available. I had no idea. I was especially excited to get arcs of my ex-classmates, the 2k8ers. MP Barker, Marissa Doyle, Barrie Sumy, Kristin O'Donnell, PJ Hoover and more. Obviously, I've arrived home before my parcel and can't remember all the books.

Free books means I have a LOT of reading to do. Plus a garden that's finally snow-free. Is there a connection, you ask? Well, I think the best way to enjoy life is to sit in a garden with a book. Life is good.

Oh, right. I have a day job to go back to and a family that loves me better when I'm looking for lost things, driving them somewhere or cooking them dinner. Ah, well. Life is still good because a good book makes the good life even better.

(And if I write the word good one more time, I'm going have trouble spelling it. Does that ever happen to you - seeing a word and suddenly really seeing it and thinking, what is this word?)

Word of the Day
good - (ME) something conforming to the moral order of the universe.
(from Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary)

Post-TLA

I got back from The Texas Library Association (TLA) meeting in Dallas last night. It was a WOW experience for me. I got to talk about my book to strangers in a strange city. While the turnout out to the Cultural Diversity Panel was low - don't ask - we were invited back for next year's conference in Houston. So, whether it was guilt that motivated the organizers (we were scheduled at the same time as a couple of big name authors) or whether we actually were interesting - the thrill is that we get to do it all over again in 2009.

The best part of the trip was meeting my wonderful co-writers in person. In this photo, from left to right we have, the amazing Stacy Nyikos (who took the initiative and got us to Dallas), the spunky Bev Patt (now fearlessly co-leading the emerging 2k9 class), our superwoman publisher, Miriam Hees (whom we love dearly because she believes in us), the experienced Lila Guzman (with several books out about Latino history), the accomplished, bubbly seer, Linda Joy Singleton (with how many books out?) and me - still looking nervous - even though I should be relieved because ... not only did we survive, we can mark Houston, TLA, 2009 on our calendar.

More pictures to come.

p.s. In the photo, please note the green ribbons attached to our conference badges. Those ribbons identified us as 'speakers' and we wore them with pride.

The Kulak's Daughter

I've been holding this close to me, just indulging in its existence for two weeks. But now, I'm ready to share. I have my cover! Yes. It's like discovering what your baby looks like. I've looked at it again and again. It's a face I know well - on that cover - my mother's face when she was an eleven year old girl. I'd not seen this photo until 2000 when a distant relative found the photo and mailed it as a gift calendar.

At first I was afraid to look at that image of my mom as a child because it was obviously too painful for her to look it. She hid it - and I respected her pain. Gradually, however, I would peak at it whenever I visited her apartment. I got to know that little girl by asking questions. After all, I had two young daughters of my own. I was very aware of just how vulnerable little girls are.

Later, I made a copy of that photo (and of another one) and hung the two over my bed. I stared at that family until those eyes were etched into my mind. And now I know the story. And it's going to be a book. And my mom's photo - that young kulak girl - is on the cover!

German weather poem

April, April kann machen was er will.
Bald Regen und bald Sonnenschein.
Bald ist die Luft voll Schnee.

Translation:
April, April can do what he wants.
First rain, then sunshine
Then the air is filled with snow.

Just had to share that German wisdom. I'd welcome the "April showers brings May flowers" weather since it implies WARMTH.

Enough about weather - I'm leaving for Texas next Saturday where I'm sure it'll be warm, sunny and best of all, raining books! (I mean, it's a library convention, right?)

I'm traveling down there by bus and look forward to viewing the great US of A through bus windows. It's all about the journey - not the destination.

Conducting snowflakes.

It's April. Spring break. Blah weather. But it could always be worse. As I was doing my daily walk I saw a school-aged kid - maybe nine or ten - conducting the snowflakes, as they filled the air, willy-nilly around us. I just love the image of this kid totally engrossed in his make-believe world where snowflakes dance while he commanded them. The kid was totally oblivious to me, but that was okay, because I still heard the music.

It's a great time of year to be a kid -even an adult kid. The puddles are everywhere. In the mornings there's still that thin plate of crackable ice over streets and sidewalks. The breaking of ice sounds like spring. A robin was in the backyard the other day. And the crows have returned - black, strong and noisy. Even the pussy willows in my yard have finally burst from their buds.

ee cummings described this season best ... when the world is puddle-wonderful - it smells, sounds, and feels like winter is finally loosing. Hurrah for spring! Time to conduct the snowflakes out of lives - at least for awhile. Please now, bow low and exit - stage left.

Chernobyl

I went to McNally Robinson, our local independent bookstore, last night to view the most recent photos by David Mcmillan (click here to see a collection of his older photos) and also to hear a story excerpt by Larry Frolic - both were in Ukraine recently. It was shivers-down-the- spine stuff.

Mcmillan's artistic photos were of the Chernobyl area - empty of people, but overgrown with trees now - kids' playgrounds, basketball courts, hotels and ordinary streets totally immersed in jungles where wild boars roam freely. When the people evacuated, their pets had to stay. The dogs were shot en masse - but some avoided death - and so they still breed in the people-less spaces. (There must be cats, too.) Mcmillan said he deliberately goes in the fall, when the trees aren't as dense.

Most of the photos I saw last night were of Pryipat - a town of about 45, 000, two kilometers from the reactor. It's a modern town that was built in the 1970s for the workers. This still Soviet world is frozen in 1986 forever, perhaps - a kind of "I am Legend" place (okay, I only watched that movie to spend time with my son :) )

I'm blabbing on here, when last night, a picture could tell a thousand words. A fallen bust of Lenin, an empty kindergarten room, yellow walls peeling, a ferris wheel in a forest of deciduous trees, the faded flag of the old USSR, huge helicopters left to rust - all contaminated by the invisible radiation. Even people's personal documents had to stay behind.

The photographer, David Mcmillan, says he plans to return as often as possible to continue his photo essay of Chernobyl. It's just amazing stuff about how a city vanishes as nature takes over. And you know what has so far stayed bright and untouched? Plastic toys. Long live plastic. Scary.

I hear you can now take bus tours of this uninhabitable place. When I was in Ukraine, back in 2004, I did tour the Chernobyl museum - where every village that was evacuated is mentioned and children's dolls stare at visitors. That museum was a spooky place, too.

Easter is ...

Daffodils and bunny rabbits, puddles and pussywillows, eggs and chocolate.

These daffodils are not from my garden - they're from the city's conservatory, once known as the Palm House. The bunny cupcakes, though, were made in my kitchen by my oldest daughter.

The Germans get credit for the Christmas tree and the Ukrainians get the Easter egg. But back in 1929, Stalin disallowed any religious celebrations. What a gray world that must have been.

My own family's Easter rituals over here in the new country included a new outfit (very important for a little girl), looking for Easter chocolate, and then attending church and singing the upbeat songs about new life. Later, as a young person, Easter morning would start very early. We'd get up before dawn and drive around to the older church members' homes, find their bedroom window and sing one of the lively Easter hymns - in German!

Now my family's Easter ritual involves egg/chocolate hunt and then fresh croissants. We still have at least a foot of snow on the ground and the pussy willows aren't even out yet. Still we've got to believe that new life is coming!