One of the greatest stories to come from this bloggy thing we do, is my striking up a correspondence with a writer called Laura Stanfill. Laura, a former journalist, heard of me through a mutual friend and contacted me to be part of her 7 Questions for Writers interview series. (I mentioned this in a previous post.) She then produced a book, and being the amazing promoter that she is, last week she got a whole bunch of contributors together for a reading in a local community center. There were about 90 people in the audience!
Laura asked me to read something from my novel, so I treated them to the first chapter of my middle grade novel, SHAKESPEARE ON THE LAM, which is still (sigh!) out on submission. I kid you not, I felt like a rock star. Here's a video of me, getting all excited with the words on the page:
The best thing, though, was listening to and then meeting a bunch of amazingly talented writers who are also in Brave on the Page--people like Liz Prato; Duncan Ellis; Nancy Townsley and her husband, Gregg; Bart King; Stevan Allred; Kristen Forbes; and Shasta Kearns Moore. And many of them signed my book!! (Sorry if I'm beginning to sound like a squealing fan boy.)
There is, I believe, nothing better than being in a room full of writers. We are appreciative of each other, because we know how hard it is to put ourselves out there and write. I want to give Laura Stanfill huge credit for being such a visionary, and for all the time and effort she has put into making this book a reality, and for making our writing community stronger. I have never been so proud of being a writer.
