A Whirlwind Month of Creativity
I've been quiet here because I've had an amazingly busy few weeks. A quick recap:

On Saturday, the school had its annual Field Day, that includes sports, games, theater, talent shows, bazaars, the art show, and more.
I run the used book sale which is my favorite two week period of the year, because I get to indulge my inner bookseller/ librarian/ book lover. We sort hundreds of donated books and arrange them in a pop up book store. With the help of many volunteers, it takes two weeks to set up, 6 hours to run, and 2-3 hours to break down.
The bonus? Each year I buy a box of amazing books.
Stage 1 (Sorting): Getting boxes of books and sorting them into categories. This is Day 1 or 2.
Day 4-5 (Each of the piles on the table is a category, like self help, cookbooks, humor, etc).
Stage 2 (All Set Up: Field Day):
Stage 3 Breakdown (All the unsold books are boxed up and donated to The Up Center, a local nonprofit that provides services for low-income people and people in need. They run a used bookstore that trains and hires very low-income people).
So now I have some time to sleep, recover, and get back to my regularly scheduled life.
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Nevada SCBWI Mentor Program Concluding Conference
I went to the concluding conference of the Nevada SCBWI Mentor Program in Virginia City, Nevada, last weekend, where my six month mentorship program concluded with a huge bang. We met with our mentors, reconnected with friends, and had an art and conversation filled weekend. A few photos:
The five women illustrators in the program (we had one guy, Steve Roe, who was the photographer) with David Diaz (Sidne Teske, Heidi Woodward Sheffield, Lori Ann Levy-Holm, Kary Lee, and me):
We met an awesome artist in residence, Karen Hampton, who showed us her solar printing technique:
Lori Ann held a workshop on a painting technique. Mentors David Diaz and Jim Averbeck hard at work:
In town, there was a museum of Mark Twain's print shop where he worked as an editor of the local paper for two years:
Norfolk Academy Art Show
My kids' school runs an annual spring art show for two weeks that includes over a hundred local artists. The great news is that my two penguin paintings sold!

Field Day Book Sale
I run the used book sale which is my favorite two week period of the year, because I get to indulge my inner bookseller/ librarian/ book lover. We sort hundreds of donated books and arrange them in a pop up book store. With the help of many volunteers, it takes two weeks to set up, 6 hours to run, and 2-3 hours to break down.
The bonus? Each year I buy a box of amazing books.
Stage 1 (Sorting): Getting boxes of books and sorting them into categories. This is Day 1 or 2.
Day 4-5 (Each of the piles on the table is a category, like self help, cookbooks, humor, etc).
Stage 2 (All Set Up: Field Day):
Stage 3 Breakdown (All the unsold books are boxed up and donated to The Up Center, a local nonprofit that provides services for low-income people and people in need. They run a used bookstore that trains and hires very low-income people).
So now I have some time to sleep, recover, and get back to my regularly scheduled life.
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like:
- Nevada SCBWI Mentor Program: An Illustrator's and Writer's Dream (report on first conference)
- My Favorite Thing: Finding Great Books (2013 Field Day sale)
- The Joy (& Stories) of Used Books (2012 sale)