Telluride Visit!

Just got back from a beautiful-beyond-words trip to Telluride!

Rode a little plane over the Rockies to get there... breath-taking views... snow-topped mountains and hillsides covered with bright yellow aspens.


Such amazing and enthusiastic teens and teen librarians (Alyssa in the middle and Sarah in yellow on right) at the Telluride Library! Oh, how I wish I lived there so I could swing by to say hi every day!  What a cozy, wonderful community.

Wined and dined at a magnifique French restaurant with librarians and teachers and community leaders...

Everyone did such a fantastic job generating excitement about my visit! Here's a bulletin board at the school...

Some of the talented high school girls who attended the Friday afternoon writing workshop...

Here's a cool little fantasy/sci fi nook in the high school library... wish I had a little refuge like this when I was in high school... I would have curled up there and never left!

I stayed at a cute B and B, right downtown next to a river trail, where I walked every day (while dreaming of living here)...

Couldn't get enough of those quivering aspens...


For my Saturday writing workshop at the library, some of these teens took a two hour van ride to get there! I was honored.  They were all brilliant writers, I discovered...

The fabulous librarian and blog reviewer Di (of Genrefluent), who I'd corresponded with online and was absolutely *thrilled* to meet in person!  What a treat. (And she drove two hours each way, too...)  

These gorgeous girls stopped by the library on Saturday before going to their Homecoming dance.  I was so touched!

Here I am with a couple cool readers at the multicultural celebration on Saturday night... I did a presentation on "Transcending Borders."  I was so happy to have such an exuberant audience-- about half of the people there were native Spanish speakers (my talk was simultaneously translated into Spanish via headsets)... Everyone had lots to contribute... One family there was from Oaxaca!  They spoke Chinanteco, one of the eighteen indigenous languages spoken in Oaxaca.  Needless to say,  I was over the moon to chat with them (in Spanish... I don't speak Chinantecto- -maybe one day!)  It was such an honor to be part of this community celebration-- many connections were made that evening-- what great energy...

Two of the geniuses behind the celebration--  Sarah the super-hero librarian on the left and Emo the community non-profit community organizer goddess on the right.  I was so impressed with how they got nearly everyone in town excited about my books... Several times as I was walking down the street, some kids called out, "Hi Laura Resau!"  And they even knew how to pronounce my last name. ;)

Before my plane left on Sunday, I took a ride up the mountain in a free gondola. Stunning views...


 Here's the town of Telluride through the gondola window...

And here it is when I was almost to the top... (yes, I was a wee bit nervous, dangling alone in the air at 10,000 feet...)

Thank you, Telluride, for an incredibly memorable and special visit!  I'll be back!!

xo

Laura 

Maria Virginia, Mannequin Belly Buttons, and Ruby Reviews...

Hello all!

Just got back from an outing to our very lame local mall (featured on deadmalls.com) with Lil Dude this rainy afternoon.  He's fascinated by mannequins, and was on a mission to look under each one's shirt to confirm that they each had a belly button.  (All of them did, although many were headless.)  He's into belly buttons.  The other day, out of the blue, he said in a very serious voice, "Mommy, all mammals have belly buttons.  If it has a belly button, it's a mammal."

So, other fun stuff... I had a gathering at my house a few days ago in honor of Maria Virginia Farinango, my co-author for The Queen of Water (March 2011).  She's in town now, but will return to Ecuador soon... we wanted to have a little shin dig to show off the gorgeous review copy of Queen and thank everyone who gave us revision help or general moral support!

Here's Maria V with Maria Luisa (Swiss woman who plays Andean music!) and Julie (writer, bilingual educator, and good friend).  Maria is posed with dirty dishes... it's kind of a running joke that she's not allowed to do any cleaning up at my house, but then she always sneaks in the kitchen and does it while I'm blabbing away and drinking wine... (I always wait till the next day (or day after that or after that) to do dishes.)

Maria and the very sweet Flora, who's from Bolivia-- another gorgeous Andean country...

Sarah, from my writing group, with new baby and cute new haircut! She helped with Queen revisions over the past five or so years!

To the left of Sarah is Michelle-- a fourth grade teacher at bilingual school in our neighborhood-- she helped with Queen revisions during our Spanish-speaking focus group.

To the left of Michelle is Margaret-- a friend of Maria's who does amazing international community development volunteer work (with Afghan women and rug-making)

Michelle with one of the adorable three year old boys in attendance (my lil dude was the other one!)  At one point during the party, noticing that his mom, Carrie's lap was occupied (with his baby sister), he made a general request to adults nearby.: "Can I sit in someone's lap please?"  Awww....

 And here's his mom, Carrie, who is in my writing group, and like Sarah, has seen many drafts of The Queen of Water.  (I think she's the one, who at one point during the process of choosing a title for this book, suggested "Maria and the Potatoes", since Maria talked a lot about potatoes in one draft of the book. Hehehe...)  To the right of Carrie is Holly, holding Sarah's baby (I know, babies galore!) Holly is an educator, fluent in Spanish, and was part of our Spanish focus group.

There's MaryLou in the middle... another amazing woman who does lots of international volunteer work. She's involved with the Xucaneb Fund to enable secondary education in a Guatemalan village, a non-profit where I donated 5% of my royalties last year.

Ian (hubbie, with new haircut) and Paul, another bilingual educator who helped us in the Spanish focus group for Queen. Great guy!

As usual, I'll refrain from posting a pic of Lil Dude, but trust me, with every passing day, his curly hair grows wilder and he grows cuter!

On a different note, here's a little blurb from School Library Journal's nice review of The Ruby Notebook (in their October issue):

"With a hint of mystery, a bit of romance, a touch of travel, and some coming-of-age, this book covers a lot of ground without ever feeling scattered or haphazard. Resau’s robust descriptions give readers a good picture of France and its people... Anyone who enjoys detailed settings and thoughtful narratives will be rewarded with this story." -- SLJ

The Fort Collins Coloradoan also had a lovely review of Ruby today:

"Curl up with this and you'll be sorry when it ends. Resau's easy, heartwarming literary style inserts the reader into the focal setting of the village plaza, making the characters Zeeta hangs out with such as the pigeon man and the elderly binocular lady genuine parts of the scene.  Zeeta juggles a mysterious admirer with her boyfriend and becomes involved in a search for legendary spring waters that offer a coming of age and give Zeeta life lessons on love in all its forms. Highly recommended." – Nancy Hansford 

 
Thanks for reading!

xo
Laura

THE RUBY NOTEBOOK Party Recap!

Thanks so much to everyone who came to my release party on Saturday!  I had heaps of fun celebrating with you!  All your enthusiasm made me excited to finish writing The Jade Notebook so you can find out what happens next...

 Accordion music filled the room thanks to the incredible Thomas Chen...

Here's Jean-Claude, owner of La Creperie (my favorite local restaurant) who was responsible for making the divine pastries.  Next to him is Jean-Christophe, who helped me with French slang and expressions  in the book. (And coincidentally, Thomas, Jean-Claude, and Jean-Christophe are all names of characters in The Ruby Notebook! C'est bizarre, n'est-ce pas?)

I love that people of all ages came out to celebrate... the three-year-old crowd is endlessly entertaining... they really got into dancing.  Against Ian's (hubbie's) advice, I held an accordion dance contest, which turned out to be tres amusant (thanks for being good sports, everyone!)

I read a few little sections of the book, and everyone graciously laughed when they were supposed to (I learned from my Lil Dude that you can't go wrong with potty humor... in this case, pigeon potty humor).  The teens there seemed excited about sharing their new French vocab word (me*de or mer*e, hehehe) with their French teacher at school.  They promptly book-marked that page...

I was so happy to see so many teen girl fans of The Indigo Notebook, who were eager to read Ruby.... They all looked supercute-- some dressed in tres chic French outfits.

There was signing with a ruby red pen...

This lovely fan drove with her mom and sister all the way from south Denver for the party!  I was honored!

You'll notice from the empty doilies that nearly all the pastries were all eaten by the time I started signing... but miraculously there was one heavenly pastry left for me... (merci, merci)

It's funny, but before the party I'd been worried I ordered too many pastries, and wondering what I'd do with all the leftovers... another party maybe?  Ridiculous... (here's the line for pastries, out the door...)

Nothing cuter than little hands oh-so-carefully carrying a little masterpiece...

So many writer friends showed up to celebrate... here I'm talking with fabulous picture book author Natasha Wing (who has a reading at Old Firehouse Books on Oct 16). 

Thank you Old Firehouse Books and everyone else for making this such a special night for me!

xoxo,
Laura