Donna, INATS, possibilities, etc.

On to recent history...I picked Donna up at the airport Thurs. a.m. at 8:15 (if you've followed my blog for any length of time, you know that is like the middle of the night for me!) and brought her to our house, and to the garden for tea. She was suitably impressed (important since I had wanted it to be perfect and Claire, aka "#4," and Rick and I had all worked on it to make it so!). We started feeling hungry at 10:30, so we went to Gaia Cafe, a charming little place nearby that has fabulous breakfast food and tables outside under big shade trees. Afterward, we came back here and just laid around on the living room sofas for a few hours, all the while flirting with the idea of a nap, but never quite surrendering to that. It was fun to just hang out and catch up. At 3:00 we left for her hotel room by the Merchandise Mart, (she was here for the International New Age Trade Show as an entertainer) and though we remembered to invoke Easy World, there was a LOT of slow-moving traffic. It wasn't really difficult--just not the conditions I would have preferred. After dropping her off, I decreed that I would have an easy and free-flowing trip home, and, indeed, the trip south took about a third the amount of time.

Saturday, I went to the tradeshow as Donna's "helper," though I only helped her for about 15 minutes as she was giving out CDs for a fellow musician. The rest of the time I spent wandering the show or sitting in the lounge, talking to various folks who sat at my table. Before I left home, I had thought to grab some Easy World boarding passes and posters just in case I met someone--lots of publishers there--who might be interested. And I did! Without naming names, Donna introduced me to the owner of one of the publishing houses I am interested in submitting a proposal for the Easy World book to, and he was really into the idea of EW. He told both me and Donna on separate days that Easy World was the one thing he would take away from the conference! If you knew all the ideas being exchanged at INATS, you'd be as impressed as we were!

I also connected with 2 other publishers I'm interested in on my own, and both were intrigued with Easy World and gave me information on submitting and encouraged me to do so. I think it helped that I gave them the EW boarding passes!

This has gotten me all psyched to send query letters not only to them, but to literary agents, and I've been having a really fun time (believe it or not) writing and polishing my query. Keep your fingers crossed for the Easy World book--not that EW needs much help! I am really excited about getting it out to the world in a larger way and just need to stay super-attuned in order to make the right decisions.

I met a lovely jewelry artisan named Sohana from Hawaii...and Bali (tough assignment!) and loved her creations. I wasn't in a position to buy anything, but maybe I'll commission something someday! Here she is among her gorgeous things: