Hudson Children's Book Festival was a Blast!

I attended the second annual Hudson Children’s Book Festival this past weekend and it was amazing. Over 5000 people walked through the door from 10am to 4pm and every single kid received a free book. There were over 100 authors/illustrators there ranging from those who write board books to middle grade to young adult. In the photo above from left to right is: me and the super talented: Michelle Zink, Jennifer Hubbard,Neesha Meminger and Megan Frazer.

My table was nestled between Jan Cheripko and Aimee Ferris. Besides being authors, Jan works with at-risk youth and Aimee used to be a dive master—so cool!
I was also on a panel called Common Ground: Connecting Teens through Books & Music with authors, Michelle Zink, Maryrose Wood and Megan Frazer. We each read a scene from our books and played a snippet of a song that inspired us to write our novels. We even have our play list up on iTunes of the songs that we selected for the presentation.

I stayed in Hudson for the weekend and my hosts, local teachers, Val and Karen were amazing. I was ready to move in! Authors Ellen Jensen Abbott and Anne Haywood Leal, also stayed with me. We hung out late into the night chatting on the porch and drinking local wine.

On my drive back to Boston I stopped at a cemetery in Columbia County that was the perfect setting for the manuscript I’m also done writing, Graveyard Shift. I took many photos of the graveyard. It felt a little strange being there all alone on a bright Sunday morning but a girl has to do her research!

So why attend a book festival? I love chatting with readers, writers, teachers and librarians and there’s no better place to do this than at a book festival. You should definitely check this festival out next year. It will be on May 7, 2011. Don’t live near Hudson? There are plenty of book festivals across the country, just check which one is coming to a town near you. Happy reading!