ALA and back again

A redeye flight, the crossing of multiple time zones, and a congenital tendency to stay up late — these things are making the return from Anaheim a slog, but back I am and it was an inspiring trip, jet lag and all. I saw friends and editors, gave and received glimpses of/at forthcoming books, met librarians and admired fellow bookmakers, misplaced and mispronounced various names, saw Caldecott and Newbery speeches which went into ALA lore even as they were being delivered, and had the pleasure and honor of picking up Lightship’s Sibert Honor award.
I also attended the Simon & Schuster Original Art Lunch mentioned in the previous post. There, the bulk of my carefully considered remarks left my head the minute I stood to deliver them. There, too, I realized that a small book full of sketches and reference images is hard to show in the context of a big and busy group. (All the more reason to throw images from it up on the blog as we get closer to The Hinky-Pink’s publication date.) So, that was that.
A second lunch made up for it, though, one with the Sibert Committee following the ALSC awards ceremony. It was a small and relaxed group and we had time to go beyond presentation and into actual conversation. I was impressed and charmed by the librarians on the committee and the whole thing made me feel great all over again about Lightship’s selection by the committee. Thanks again to them, and thanks to S&S for the trip west!

Above: an unused vignette from Lightship. A piece that I liked, but the sunrise version of this scene won out.