Last night I did my first open-to-the-public library talk at Lithgow Library in Augusta ME, and it was excellent! I had a tremendously fun time and did not get nearly as nervous as I feared.

The event was held in an amazing room that probably has a cool name I neglected to record. Among other things it has a really high ceiling, all sorts of embellishments on the walls, stained glass, a Grandfather Clock, and a huge fireplace. It was definitely a fun space for a talk, making me feel like I was a guest in someone’s manor house.

Check it out in this picture from before the event:

And check out the people– some of them are even people I didn’t bribe don’t know! But they came, and asked excellent questions, and answered all my fairy tale trivia questions, and played my clue-reading game (guessing things about a person– in this case Bob was a great sport and played the part– based on clues, just as Fortunata does to tell her fortunes). I was particularly excited by the young readers who were so smart and into everything and had already read a ton of great books.

I put out my brand new “guest book” for folks to sign, sent people home with handouts listing some of my favorite fairytale/myth/legend books, and at the end handed out prizes to the folks who earned the most points in the games. Books for the two highest scores, chocolate for everyone else.

I met a number of teachers and librarians and other folks who are working to encourage literacy, which was also very cool. Now that I know I enjoy doing this sort of thing, I am hoping to try to set up additional talks around the state. And maybe even school visits!

Afterwards I signed books and talked more and then Bob and I and some friends celebrated at the Liberal Cup. And then I stayed up until 11 (normal bedtime = 9PM) because I was so jazzed from the night (not to mention the chocolate and caffeine imbibed earlier).

Hooray for libraries!

Here’s a few other non-Library-related tidbits:

The lovely Cindy Pon interviewed me for The Enchanted Inkpot and it’s up now if you want to read about the origin of my name, where I want to be in ten years, and my favorite pastry.

Also on the Inkpot, I asked some of the other Inkies to talk about the magic/magical elements in their books and how they developed them. Read about it here.

Lastly, the itch to get back and do my first revision of Circus Galacticus is becoming too strong to ignore. So I am going to plunge into that starting tomorrow. I was just reading this REALLY helpful revision checklist posted by Literary Agent Nathan Bransford and now I am all afire to get to work!

Then once that’s done and off to beta readers I am thinking of trying an experiment to keep my mental writing muscles in shape while I take a forced break from CG. My plan is to collect 4-5 images that evoke something related to my potential next novel. I’ll take one each week and do a freewriting sort of exercise that will hopefully get me into the new book and playing with the characters and setting. Maybe I’ll do one prompt per main character… I might even post the prompts a week early in case anyone else wants to play along!

Tags: events, fortune's folly, rich and strange