Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, TN

Look who greeted me upon my arrival
to War Memorial Plaza
for the Southern Festival of Books
in Nashville, TN
They must have known Operation Yes was coming. 

At LEAD Academy,
talking about military families, writing books, and saying YES

Great kids
I wrote a jody call just for them
and boy, did they belt it out

I don’t know, but I’ve heard it’s true,

LEAD Academy has the tightest crew. 

We can’t be quiet; we’ll say it loud,

We are LEADERS and we are proud.

I don’t know, but I’ve been told

Books are better than piles of gold.

We can’t be quiet; we’ll say it loud,

We are LEADERS and we are proud.

We have a secret; we confess, 

Battles are won by saying YES.

We can’t be quiet; we’ll say it loud,

We are LEADERS and we are proud.

We can’t be quiet; we’ll say it loud,

We are LEADERS and we are proud.

Books sales, my kryptonite

They had both my books in stock.
And my panel on Contemporary Military Families in Fiction
went really well. I was happy.

Books by my co-presenter, Dana Reinhardt
including her novel, The Things a Brother Knows.
My husband absconded with my copy,
 and just texted me his review:
Wicked good. 

Me with authors Dana Reinhardt and Louis Sachar

Jon Sciescka was in the house,
talking up Spaceheadz and Guys Read.
I didn't get to meet him again, but I did sit in his
chair! He had been eating breakfast
with Tom Angleberger, author of Origami Yoda . . . 

and then I sat down with Tom,
 so you know the magic in the chair totally rubbed off on me, right?

Tom also asked if he could snap a quick picture of me reading for this project for a librarian friend. (Click one of those map pins in Tennessee, and you'll see a pic of me, a book, and a biscuit.) 

See that name? Lauren Kate? 
In a former life, she was my editor at HarperCollins.
She was the reason Letters From Rapunzel was pulled from the slush and became a real book.

 What a total pleasure to see her again, meet her husband, 
and have her meet mine, and to rejoice in her great success. 

Me and Lauren

I also got to catch the end of Deborah Wiles reading from Countdown.

 I cannot wait to read this!

I had time to duck into the gorgeous
 downtown Nashville Public Library

Maps of Nashville 

Check out the macarons at Provence,
the cafe adjacent to the library.
I had one lemon and one chocolate. Mmmmm.

Provence was also where I met Jules (from Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast) for a morning chat which was going splendidly until I thought to check the time. Holy crap. I thought we'd talked for an hour. NO. It was THREE.
I had to run to my hotel to check out, and Jules had to run to a Festival session, so it was quick hugs and sadly, no pictures of us together. Waaaaah. We need an official timekeeper when we get together.

You know it was a Southern Festival
 because the author hospitality bags contained
mini MoonPies and Jack Daniels.

"Atticus Finch for Chief Justice" t-shirts

Monuments to Music

Guitars everywhere

All in all, a spectacular weekend. Thank you, Nashville, and the Southern Festival of Books. Truly a class act.