what a week!

SO much has happened in the past seven days! Last Friday I had breakfast with Jewels Smith, creator of the (H)afrocentric comic. We swapped stories about teaching Ethnic Studies at a community college and shared our strategies for getting our work out into the world. Then I went home and packed so I could fly to LA! My budget hotel was just a short walk from the USC campus and so on Saturday morning I went over to drop off books. I ran into Jackie Woodson immediately and that helped put me at ease. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel spending Saturday on my own in a strange city, but I had an amazing day. I went to a gallery to see POWER—an exhibit of incredible Black women artists spanning 150 years. Then I walked downtown and took a two-hour walking tour of historic LA. Laura drove down from Berkeley and we connected that evening to have dinner with Stan Yogi and his husband David. I’m not a social girl but I do love dinner parties—a delicious home-cooked meal plus great conversation plus loads of laughter. I slept well after clocking close to 20K steps and the next day met up with Maya, Matthew, and Sky to head over to the LA Times Book Festival. We got our badges, had breakfast with our co-panelists in the University Club, and then headed over to the Hoy Stage. We got to meet Arleene Valdez who created this wonderful space for the Latinx community, and found our friends were already sitting in the front row. I thought they might be the only ones in attendance but we had a full house–well over 50 people under the tent! It was awesome to look out during our 30-minute panel and see heads nodding in agreement with the points we raised about the value of storytelling in our communities. We signed books afterward and then got a quick bite to eat in the green room before heading to the Huntington Library to see the Octavia Butler exhibit. It was amazing and the gardens surrounding the library were stunning. Laura and I reconnected with Maya, Matthew, and Sky for dinner and that’s when things took a turn. I felt full but otherwise fine, yet at midnight found myself throwing up…something I haven’t done since I was a kid, I think. I felt better afterward and woke up thinking I could give two book talks at a school in Silver Lake. The first talk went well but I passed out during the second talk and threw up again…I actually don’t even remember what happened; by the time I came to, the kids were gone, and the teacher was rubbing my back while calling 911. Paramedics came and said my vitals were fine…but I was MORTIFIED. That has never happened to me before and I hate to think that the kids might have been traumatized or at the very least disappointed that I couldn’t finish my talk. I was VERY grateful to the staff and my host Carmen who came and got me and took me to her home; while I booked a room at an airport hotel, she packed me some rice cakes and a banana…what a godsend! I checked into the hotel and slept for a few hours before heading to the airport for my 12:30am flight. And I feel much better now—got through 3 more gigs yesterday and today, and a girl who didn’t even participate in the workshop gave me this lovely poster as I left Bay Ridge Library. I just submitted my abstract for an October conference on Black British history in the UK. This morning I made plans to see a friend in Cambridge while I’m in England next month, and this evening I approved another amazing sketch by my illustrator for The Return (three down, one more to go). I got a (mostly) positive response to my minstrelsy essay, which went up on The Book Smugglers site earlier this week, and School Library Journal is considering my suggestion that we take a closer look at the “secret” role of book packagers in the publishing industry. This weekend I’ll be revising Dragons in a Bag and I’ve already started thinking about the sequel, which is due this fall. Will try to see some art this weekend and will stop by the botanic garden to check on the lilacs…everything’s blooming early this year because of the wonky weather. I’ve got two more trips coming up in May and then I can seriously slow down—can’t wait!