One of the things I love about conferences is hearing the stories behind the books. Nobody tells these better than editors/agents/publishers. Authors are fun to listen to too, but we’re too close to our own stories to tell them and there’s nothing like the industry’s point of view.

When I interviewed Egmont USA’s vice-president and publisher Elizabeth Law a few weeks ago. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLiQXw8T7Jc ) I told her how much I loved these stories. Then I took a deep breath and asked her quickly if she would consider talking books with me again. She say she would and this video is the result of that.

Elizabeth also wants me to give away a free galley. I’m going to let Elizabeth choose which galley to send to the winner and I’m very envious that I cannot be included in this drawing. I’m pretty sure it will be one of the books featured. I’ll collect comments from this blog entry and my facebook too. I’ll give you until Sunday, September 5th, 2010, midnight-Arizona time to enter. I’m bad with numbers and lots of other things, so I’ll let you figure that out. Then, the following Monday, I’ll draw a name from slips in a bowl and post the winner.

I’m also going to ask you to leave some love for Elizabeth while you’re here. She took time to do this and she had one of those days when it seems that all things made of technology were working against her. You’ll see in this video the technological trials we were run through and in the end we lost audio completely. You will also see what a great sense of humor Elizabeth has, you will be simultaneously charmed and solidly cracked up. You have to see her reaction when I pitched a picture book manuscript to her!! FUNNY! She then followed that up with some really sweet advice about interacting with her at conferences. This is a special lady who wraps her heart and soul around the books she acquires for her company. She is exactly who we want to choose the books that will offered to our kids to read!

Enjoy this video of Elizabeth talking books!

And I recorded it so that all of you could see it too, wasn’t that nice of me? We talked about balancing writing and illustrating. If you’re familiar with Adam’s work, then you know that he is just a scary creative genius who has put out a phenomenal body of work and he just keeps more coming all the time. We also talked about that all too familiar dilemma of what to do when a basket of were-puppies has been abandoned on your doorstep.

You can find a complete list of the books that Adam has either illustrated or written or both here. His picture book Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich had me LOL-ing so hard the cats came running to see if I was dying. Okay, they didn’t run, but they did lift their heads off the floor-interrupting their naps because of it. I just finished The True Meaning of Smekday and let me tell you that was a FUN read. Adam also has a website set up just for Smekday with a video to watch and chapter to read.

I’m looking forward to reading his newest novel Fat Vampire, a *never* coming of age story. Here is the Fat Vampire website to answer all your questions. At least about Adam’s book Fat Vampire.

Without further adieu…which was fun to type-here’s the video, Enjoy!

Good lord I’m tired of looking at myself. I’ve begun to enter my own nightmares, I do a lot of tossing at night. I’m beginning to see why I grate my inner critic’s nerves so badly.

There’s a cute cat at the end.

This past Tuesday, Son#2 made yet another quest for world domination. I talked to him about the aftermath. See and hear for yourself first hand the reason I get a little jittery when marching bands pass by too close or the engine on that bike is just a little loud. (Either that, or you’ll think I’m just another annoying parent that thinks their sweetie pookims is just the cutest thing! It’s your call.)

Elizabeth Law chatted with me via Skype and I had so much fun with her. Elizabeth is charming and smart, and has a GORGEOUS apartment! Elizabeth is vice president & publisher at Egmont USA; “At Egmont, our motto is that we turn writers into authors, and children into lifelong readers.”

We talked about scuba diving and E publishing. Elizabeth put some editorial smackdown moves on me and I’m a better writer for it! She also told me what she would do if a fairy bit her while she was in her kitchen. Then she gave me some exclusive sneak peeks at some upcoming Egmont USA books for kids. You don’t want to miss this one! (You don’t want to miss any of the interviews I’ve done so be sure to check out my YouTube channel if you’ve missed any of the four I’ve done so far.)

Enjoy! I know that I sure did.

I’m having so much fun! I got to chat with Paula Yoo via Skype and Paula is just made of inspiration! If you aren’t familiar with Paula, she is an award winning children’s book author, a classically trained professional violinist, a screen play writer and a substitute teacher. She is currently working as an Co-producer for the Syfy channel’s original show EuReka. I learned from Paula that “producer” is what they call television writers.

Since YouTube extended their max upload video amount from 10 minutes to 15 minutes that means I can now pack more into the interview. Paula and I talked about writing and time management. We talked about her NaPiBoWriWee, or National Picture Book Writing Week project that has taken on a life on it’s own and definitely something all picture book writers should know about. We also talked about what to do if you find a troll in your shower! But you can go listen to it all yourself, enjoy!