Chautauqua Day 2

After a wonderful night sleeping to the sound of falling rain, I woke to find a fabulous thing--my luggage! Woo hoo! Never have I been so happy to see my ugly green suitcase. I woke very early and enjoyed a large hot cup of coffee on the deep porch in a rocker while reading the ENTIRE Sunday Times before breakfast. Nirvana. It is still raining, so it's quite cool and breezy. A perfect day to talk and think about books which we did over breakfast. I was delighted to meet Mary Casanova who has just sold her 25th book, Floyd Cooper, a brilliant, brilliant illustrator, and his lovely wife, Velma, (and their two extraordinarily well-behaved sons), and Neil Waldman. As we ate, Neil spoke so kindly to the fellow table mates encouraging us that lots of rejection is part of the process. He reminded us to stick with it and really take advantage of this opportunity to get to know the faculty this week. I'll check in more later, but while I'm studying up on everyone's names, I thought I'd shoot you all a quick post. The central message of the morning---NEVER GIVE UP. And Floyd Cooper said to enjoy the anticipation stage. Two excellent pieces of advice offered kindly and generously to a newbie like myself. If any of my writer readers are unfamiliar with any of these names, I strongly encourage you to google them and check out their bodies of work. I'm blown away by the talents and accomplishments in this place, but mostly by the true passion for putting out excellent literature for children.