carried by friends to Los Angeles and Texas and back again

I don't get out into that book world as much as I'd like to; my work keeps me here at my desk.  But I get to travel vicariously through people I've come to love, and last week, I was gloriously carried to or remembered at two major book events.

I'd begged the fantastic bloggers (and women!!!) Danielle, Amy, and Florinda to take me to the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books—a running joke we had among us.  But I didn't really expect them to, you know, take me there.  I'm agile, perhaps, and I can still bend, but I don't fit into any suitcase.  Still, being the inventive and loving women they are, they found a way, and here's the photograph to prove it.  That's one bright happy moment, the three of them with this part of me.  It put a tear in my eye when I saw it late last night.

Melissa Walker, whose new book, Unbreak My Heart, is due out in May, also found me in her travels last week.  She was in Texas at the Texas Library Association meeting.  She snapped this picture and sent it my way, with a note, Great to see you at the TLA.  The thing is, though, that I really do want to see Melissa.  In person.  Some day.  We're working on it.