FALL UPDATE

I am loving this sweater weather. Fall is my favorite time of year. There’s a chill in the air and trees are beautiful with bright oranges and auburn red leaves. Warm Hot coco, sweet Carmel apples and fuzzy blankets are a few of my favorite things. Lol  
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SWEET SIXTEEN FANTASY BALL
​Personally, September is always a busy month with my birthday and my wedding anniversary. But this year was special because my daughter turned 16 and she wanted a fantasy themed sweet sixteen party. And even though it was a lot of work, we pulled it together, and it turned out fantastic. Everyone dressed up, and we made the place look like an old tavern. 

​THE SUGAR ACT
Griffith Playhouse hosted another fantastic showcase on September 22nd. My acting students performed another original play called THE SUGAR ACT. I finally have enough short plays to publish another Volume of 10 MINUTE PLAYS FOR KIDS OF ALL AGES. Although I’m considering calling it Short Plays for Kids of Ages instead, since not all of them are 10 minutes. This will be the last showcase for a while since classes are on break until January. 

SCBWI SO CAL CHAPTER FALL HARVEST CONFERENCE
October 6th, I headed down to Fullerton, CA to meet with Bev, our Regional Advisor and fellow committee members. We planned on working out any kinks we might face with technology in preparations for SCBWI’S SoCal chapter conference. The conference was the following day at Cal State Fullerton.

Afterwards, I met up with my friend and critique partner, author Tina Athaide. Tina was a guest speaker at the conference, and we opted to share the cost of a hotel room, so we didn’t have to wake at the crack of dawn the next day for the conference.

It was such a joy to hang out with her. After meeting every Monday over Zoom for two years, we’d only met once before in person, but it was like we’d been friends forever. Later that night, we met up with the rest of our critique group for dinner. It was the first time we’d ever all been together in person. We had the best time. We visited for 4 hours. I was surprised they didn’t kick us out of the pub we’d gone to. 

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Afterwards, Tina and I stayed up way too late, working on my pitch for the next day. I will be forever grateful for her helpful insight.
The next day, October 7th, we headed over to Cal State Fullerton to attend and take part in the conference. It was a full day of learning, socializing, and networking with fellow children’s book authors, editors, and agents. You can read all about the event in an article I wrote for our SCBWI newsletter HERE. 

The day's highlights for me were when I moderated Tina’s author panel with fellow author Laura Taylor Namey. It was so much fun and informative. The other was my pitch to editor Courtney Stevenson at HarperCollins, who liked my idea and was interested in reading it. Cross our fingers, she likes it and wants to publish it! I will keep you updated. 

GETTING NOTICED
I also have some great news to share. CJ FALLON, an education publishing house in Ireland, asked for the rights to publish a portion of one of my plays in their English books. What an honor! I’m thrilled to receive this kind of international attention for my plays. I’ll share when it comes out.  But here is what it could look like. 

SPOOKY BOOK RECOMMENDATION
The rest of the month was busy with editing, writing, critique groups and Halloween carnivals, Spooky movies and Trick or Treating. Speaking of fun, spooky entertainment, I discovered a fantastic MG book series from Author V.E. Schwab. I highly recommend them. I binged all three of the books in her series: CITY OF GHOSTS, TUNNEL OF BONES, BRIDGE OF SOULS. 

​HALLOWEEN FUN
For Halloween, I didn’t go all out like normal. I dressed up like a witch to keep it easy while passing out candy. I think the whole Halloween on a Tuesday really messed up all the fun of staying up late and getting your candy high on this year. Halloween should be on the last Saturday of October instead of Oct 31st. It’s silly that they haven’t changed it.
November is set out to be another busy month, with my son’s 18th birthday, Thanksgiving, and another book signing event at Barnes and Noble on the 16th! 

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