Red Glass Art!

Hey guys,

Well, this weekend is the first of spring, and there are a few inches of snow on the ground... just in time for our Lil Dude's 3rd birthday party tomorrow at the Farm. When I planned it a couple months ago, I deluded myself into thinking that surely, spring would have come by March 20... Yet somehow, even from beneath the snow, those bits of tree pollen are managing to find their way into my allergic, red, puffy eyes. Not to complain... but man oh man, do my eyes itch right now. I always forget about this nasty side effect of springtime (even when it still looks more like wintertime out my window.)


So, on a nicer note, here are some very cool art projects done by an English class at one of the schools I visited in south Texas a couple weeks ago. It's so fun to see how readers envision characters, and what quotes from the book stand out to them. Some of these students should be graphic designers, I'm convinced-- I'd trust them to design my covers any day. I think their assignment was to make a movie poster for Red Glass (imagining it's been made into a movie... ahhh, if only...)

Love the colors in this one!

Manga!!!

Oooh-- look at the blossoms-- and what a striking image of Sophie...

Angel looks so cute in this one...

Awww... how sweet!

Check out her Red Glass mobile!!

Close-ups of the dangling thingies on the mobile!

Heeheehee... love the image of Pablo as a chick hatching from an egg!

Thanks so much for reading!

xoxo,
Laura

Back from Maryland Trip! (Part II)

Hey all!

So, I'm dividing my Maryland trip into two sections: the previous post was about my trip to Dunloggin, so scroll on down if you want to see that. This one's about my Clemente Middle School vist.

I was super-excited to return to Clemente this year. I went last year, too, and had lots of fun. I got hooked up with this school because my aunt and uncle and cousins happened to be sitting next to the school librarian, Ms. Gerard, at an Orioles game a couple years ago. I'm so glad they made that connection for me! Mrs. Gerard is one of the coolest librarians I've met (and I've met a lot!) She organized a book swap to pay for my visit, and did book talks complete with Mexican snacks to get kids excited about Red Glass.

Between presentations, I snacked on homemade pastries (courtesy of the library assistant!) and hung out with a bunch of library regulars who have read just about every book in the place. I was extremely impressed (I think they've read more books than me, and that's not an easy feat...)


Here I am with a very talented writer...


and an avid reader...


And now, for a bit of exciting news... My friend Maria Virginia Farinango and I got offered a contract from my beloved editor at Delacorte for the book we've spent years working on-- it's tentatively called The Queen of Water, and based on her amazing indigenous girlhood in the Ecuadoran Andes!!! We are over the moon...


Thanks for reading!

Laura

Back from Maryland Trip!

Hi all!

I'm finally recovered from the traumatic return flight with Toddler (he's nearly two now!) He had a meltdown on hour four of the flight, during the part where we couldn't get out of our seats, so I had to restrain this screaming, thrashing little creature for what felt like forever. (And he'd been such an angel on all our previous flights...)

Until that point, the trip went great. I spent two fun days visiting Dunloggin, my very own middle school from 1985-87. Some of the 7th grade reading classes just finished reading What the Moon Saw. What an honor!!!




I had some great conversations with former teachers of mine-- Mrs. Witt (in pic, she organized my visit), Mrs. Stanley (aka Mrs. Petrovich), Mr. Petrovich (in pic), and Mrs. Kehm.


The seventh graders did some cool projects based on the book-- like making their own book covers. Here are some of my favorites... there are definitely some students who have a future in book design!



They picked out "classic quotes" from the book for the back of their book jackets. I loved reading the quotes that somehow stood out to them-- it made me happy that they connected with these images and words. *Remember, you can click on the image to make it bigger!*



They also pulled out a bunch of metaphors and similes from the book (more that I'd known were in there!)

Shortly before I left for Maryland, I spent a Sunday afternoon at ALA in Denver, chatting with Random House folks and hearing Colorado teens talk about potential Best Books for Young Adults and loading up on free ARCs (advanced review copies). After the conference, I went to my friend Lauren Myracle's freedom-to-read event at The Tattered Cover. (She's one of the most banned authors of last year). Her event was a blast-- a perfect way to end the day-- she's as fun and funny and smart in person as she is in her books. Here we are with writer buddies-- Ron Cree (Desert Blood), Lauren (TTYL series; Bliss), Brandon Meyers (sci fi and fantasy), me, and Keira (avid reader!)


Okay, I'm going to do a post about my visit to Clemente Middle School now. If you haven't signed up for my every-other-month email newsletter, please sign up! That way you'll know about the book releases and tours and contests I have coming up this year. Also, if you haven't been to my new website yet, you should take a look-- my husband worked really hard on it.

Thanks for reading!
Laura

Carbondale's One Book One Middle School !

Hey everyone!

It's a winter wonderland outside my house right now-- snow a foot deep, and the temperature a grand total of one degree. For the tough folks in the mountains of Carbondale, that's nothing, I'm sure! I had a fantastic visit there two weeks ago for their One Book One Middle School event. (What the Moon Saw was the One Book!) The brilliant librarian Nicole put this together,


with the help of energetic teacher/librarian June and other hard-working, creative people.

As I mentioned in the last post, I love Carbondale-- a small, friendly town with a stunning setting-- snow-topped mountains galore. Best of all, everyone in town was super-enthusiastic about my visit-- it made me happy! The four-hour drive was definitely worth it.


On Thursday and Friday mornings, the middle school students in the Carbondale area gathered in the auditorium of Carbondale Middle School for presentations on What the Moon Saw. (The schools were: Carbondale Middle, Community School, Ross Montessori, Waldorf, and Marble Charter).


I absolutely loved this gathering because most of the students had either read the book or were in the process of reading it. They had fabulous questions-- including some new ones that really made me think. (Like, why didn't Aunt Teresa just leave Uncle Jose, since he was such a jerk?) I felt honored that the students read the book so closely, and I was thrilled about their great response. (Big thanks to the teacher Michael who held the fickle microphone plug in the socket during my whole presentation!!)


In the afternoons, I led writing workshops in small groups, in English and Spanish. I discovered that many students are talented writers and storytellers with wonderful imaginations-- budding romance novelists, fantasy authors, comedians, actors, you name it.

I had fun talking with the teachers, too, and hearing about ways they've used the book in class and the kinds of discussion it generated. One teacher incorporated art into writing activities with What the Moon Saw. She did examples herself to share with her students, which I think is great.


Also in the afternoons, I signed books (and notebooks and shoes and jeans and T-shirts and foreheads and arms...) and chatted with the students.


Muchisimas gracias to all the kids and teachers and librarians and parents in the Carbondale area who made my visit so special!!! And huge thanks to Colorado Humanities and the Center for the Book, who paid for most of my visit-- what a great organization! If you'd like, scroll down to the next blog post to read about my elementary school visit in Carbondale on Wednesday.

A little sidenote: As you know, if you were at my visit, I was impatiently waiting for the cover art for my next book The Indigo Notebook... and I'm still waiting! Arghhh! I'll post it as soon as I get it. Some good news about The Indigo Notebook is this: they're making an audiobook for it, which will come out in Fall 2009, at the same time as the book. The audiobook of Red Glass will come out in this spring, around the same time as the Red Glass paperback.

Okay, thanks for reading and checking out the pics! (You can click on them to make them bigger).

Abrazos to all,
Laura

Crystal River Elementary in Carbondale!

Hey everyone!

I had a blast in Carbondale last week! I have lots of pics from my trip, so I"ll divide this into two entries-- this one will focus on the Crystal River visit, and then, in a few days, I'll post the middle schools visit pics.


So, I have to admit that when we scheduled the visit for the third week in November, I was pretty nervous I'd have a long, terrible drive in a blizzard, since that's not uncommon in the mountains of Colorado this time of year.


But it was a perfect and breath-takingly beautiful four-hour drive there. Sunny and so warm I was wearing jeans and a tank top and even turned on the AC for parts! I listened to a Lila Downs CD over and over and relished the time to just sit and let my mind wander wherever it wanted to go. I felt grateful to be living in this gorgeous state.


I stayed at a very cool strawbale house in downtown Carbondale with a very cool family.


It made me want to live in a strawbale house. There are real bundles of straw in the walls-- well insulating and energy efficient and green-- and it just gave me a good feeling.


I spent Wednesday at Crystal River Elementary, where we focused on a story I had published in Cricket Mag a few years ago called Drops of Wax. It takes place about 70 years ago and it's about a friendship between a Gypsy girl and a Mixtec girl, with fortune-telling and waking from the dead and magical healing powers. It was inspired by some real-life tales told to me by my Mixtec curandera friend Maria Chiquita.


Two groups of fourth grade girls did fabulous performances of the story for each of the grades.


This was the first time I'd seen it acted out, and I loved it! I talked for a bit about my writing process and journey, and did a couple writing workshops.


There were lots of Spanish-speaking kids in the school, which always makes visits extra-exciting for me. They have all kinds of interesting personal connections with my stories. All the students came up with super-creative stories of their own during the workshops-- we did plenty of writing and laughing together.


Thanks, Carbondale, for a very warm welcome to your town! It seems like everyone knows everyone (and they all have good things to say about each other). Everything seems to be in walking distance-- the schools, library, restaurants, neighborhoods-- which I loved. I'll treasure the memory of this trip!

Be sure to check back next week to hear about the visits with Carbondale middle schools.