Back from sunny Australia and rainy Seattle

So, I'm finally back from a wonderful trip to Australia where my three lovely daughters and I enjoyed surf and sun, great wines, and fantastic museums and art galleries for almost a month. Arrived home to power outages and a foot of snow. Yikes! That was followed by wind storms, downed phone lines, and then computer problems. I fit in a trip to Seattle for the American Library Association Conference and book signings for A Pod of Orcas and The Smell of Paint with author friends Debbie Hodge (she has a new picture book out which you should totally check out called Lily and the Mixed Up Letters --watch for a review soon on my book blog with Tundra Books and Linda Bailey (who has new picture book coming out in the spring called Sweet Pig) which was also lots of fun. So, you see I have plenty of excuses for not updating this blog for a while. No more slacking off though…

It was a pretty busy fall with lots of travelling, lots of school presentations and festivals. The winter is supposed to be my writing time, so I'll be home a lot more. I'm especially looking forward to hearing Eric Wilson talk at the Children's Literature Roundtable (a group of teachers, librarians, parents and writers who love and want to support kids books) on January 29th. Eric has a new book out called Red River Ransom. With more than a million books sold in 10 countries, and 30 years of writing under his belt, Eric has tremendous insight into writing for kids. I am especially interested to hear of how he always gets feedback on manuscripts from a small group of kids. What a cool guy. Then near the end of February, our Roundtable is hosting Deborah Ellis who is also fabulous. But, I'd better get back to writing. All for now, Sheryl