whirlwind wonder
i'm back, lovely readers! did you miss me?
what, you didn't notice? =p
i came back yesterday on a very nice delta flight
in which i totally lucked out and got an aisle exit row
and slept for most of the way. landed, then proceeded to
go immediately to chinese school with my bubs. no rest
for the wicked and what not. 8)
malinda and i were most definitely on Diversity Tour
Amazing Race and were just glad we survived and made
it to each event safely.
despite the frenetic madness and exhaustion, we are both
so pleased and proud for the turnouts at our tour stops.
great discussion, great readers and bloggers and writers
and friends all turned out to support us, all our authors
and some fantastic books. i estimate that we had over 300
peeps attend throughout the week, and that is simply
*tremendous*. thank you thank you thank you!
this saturday, i fly again to nyc for BEA. i'll be at the
SLJ Pre-BEA Day of Dialog (5/23). my panel is at 9.15am with
authors malinda lo, rita williams-garcia and paul griffin,
moderated by liz burns. then i'll be signing Fury on tuesday
(5/24) at 10.30pm. i'll be tweeting @cindypon so follow me
to keep posted! =D
now, without further prattle, let me share fotos from our
first kick off event at the san francisco public library. it
was such a fantastic and fun way to kick off the tour!!
*our awesome audience! people trickled in after event started
and they had to add four more rows of chairs to accommodate!
*one of the first friends i said hello to! sarina has been an
online friend for… a decade probably. but i only met her for
the first time in 2009 for my SF Silver Phoenix signing. she drove
in from sacramento again to attend our panel. it was lovely to see
you sarina (who is a YA novels fan! =).
*teri is also an online friend, a writing one, who drove in
from sacramento. yay, it was so good to see you again, teri!
*author of Butterfly Swords, jeannie lin, was able to come
too! it was such a lovely surprise. if you're looking for a fantastic
adventure and romance set in the tang dynasty, read Butterfly Swords!
*and cheryl, author of Breathing, was able to take time
out of a busy saturday to come! she's a deb and we've all
been through so much together. it's hard to believe it's only
been two years or so that we've known each other!
*how cool is andrea's shirt? i met andrea at the sirens
con last october and was so happy she could come in from
studies in berkeley!
*the entire panel (jon yang, malinda lo, me and gene yang) with
julia, actual teen! =) she made me laugh because the first thing
she said to me was "you're a mom right? you're a pretty cool mom
for reading that passage." haha! i had read one from zhong ye's
narrative near the beginning of Fury of the Phoenix.
*our san francisco panel was the only one that had official
sponsors! jon yang, ellen from Kearny St. Workshop, malinda lo,
betsy from San Francisco Public Library, me, gene yang and claire
from the Carl Brandon Society.
after the awesome event, we went to have dinner at LuLu's. it was
delicious and so fun to unwind and celebrate a successful panel!
*jeannie lin and i shared this fresh made gnnochi (delicious).
*and also these chicken meatballs which were so yum too.
now i'm hungry!
*and finally, the always lovely martha flynn and i pose with
her very jiggly panna cotta (i'm sorry, but it was super jiggly).
sorry my post is totally superficial and mainly fotos (per usual, ha!)
but i'm functioning on two brain cells at the moment. =) for some
great posts about the san francisco diversity stop:
awesome recap by anne nesbet at Enchanted Inkpot
sarah stevenson, author of The Latte Rebellion, also shares
a fantastic recap at Finding Wonderland
malinda lo also posts with a wrap up over at DiYA blog!
that is all for now, darling readers. i hope to do another blog
post before i leave for nyc again this saturday, but can make no
promises. zai jian for now!!
