Let’s jump into the time machine and with a whir and a wiggle, jump and jiggle back to last Thursday. There I am in the fifth row of the Minkoff Theatre watching the Lion King. A show I’ve wanted to see for its puppetry and stage design. After the show, our group of SCBWI Regional Advisors got to go back stage and talk to the cast. An amazing experience.
Friday brought the illustrators’ intensive. The highlights of the day were hearing Jerry Pinkney talk about his lovely realistic watercolors and seeing the New Yorker cartoons and children’s work of Harry Bliss. Also, the marketing and publicity role play by the Scholastic team was informative and engaging. As a conference planner myself, I have to mention that the schedule was less than comfortable. We sat in the same room listening to others talk at us all day with no scheduled break. Lunch was on our own which is okay, but the portfolio drop off was at the same time so we had about a half hour to find something to eat. I went with the longest line at a street vendor and picked correctly. Great gyros!
Saturday and Sunday were filled with people and speakers. Lin Oliver kept it lite even through a minor emergency. There was a fire in the laundry chute which we didn’t really know until later in the day. When the warnings started I was on the top, 44th floor of the hotel and walked down quickly, That’s a lot of stairs! We were not required to evacuate but I wasn’t going to be up there if there was a real problem. Nikki Grimes’s work blows my socks off and I was thrilled to hear her give voice to her rhythmic poetry. David Wiesner, multi-Caldecott winner, was relaxed as he showed us his early kid work and professional process. Wow. Just wow.
Coming home was not in the luxury of a time machine but on the Amtrak and then driving my van to pick up children and drive the long road home from Providence, RI to Maine. Monday after my trip was a wash, Tuesday I wrote twelve thank you letters and tried to help with the last edits on the SCBWI-NE conference brochure, Wednesday my children were home for a snow day and the dining room table was Valentine production central, today I’m trying to catch up on my colored pencil class homework and laundry. Tonight, after class, I pack up my children and myself and we are on a plane to Memphis tomorrow early to visit my hubby who is working with the navy for two months. ACK! This chaos is why I’ve not posted about the end my lovely New York journey. Stay tuned for Memphis memories next week. Back to the time machine!
Creative Chaos 