Hangin' with the big dogs . . .

Greetings from the AWP (associated writers program) conference here in beautiful downtown Boston! 

 Here’s the view from outside our window at the Park Plaza Hotel.  It’s one of my favorite places in Boston, but next time we come in winter maybe we’ll stay a little closer to the convention center. Like in one of those hotels that are joined to the center by the skywalk. 

Not that I mind a couple of days of traveling back and forth in a snowstorm, mind you. Especially when compared to the days spent by our poor dogsitter, who was trapped on the mountain by 16 inches of snow, stuck with 3 increasingly grouchy dogs, no power, no heat and an increasingly frantic and I am sure increasingly annoying homeowner who texted her every 15 minutes for 36 hrs. 

That would be me, the annoying homeowner. Kudos to Marie the dogsitter who was a champ through it all!

 (insert white space to represent Marie buried in snow)

However, everyone made it through and Marie is plowed out and powered, the snow has stopped here, and the conference has been quite informative, with some great seminars by children's and YA book authors including -

Janet Fox, Swathi Avasthi, Leah Cypess and an amazing seminar on landscape and place with Kerri  Madden, Lucy Christopher and Julia Green, among others.

Plus an amazing 2 whole floors  of the Hynes Convention Center filled with books of every kind and description, small presses, independent presses, university presses . . .

Here’s the mayapple press (publisher of  my poetry book Some Very Soft Days )and onewetshoe media( publisher of Cuttyhunk: Life on the Rock) with my lovely and talented editor Amee. 

And here’s my even more lovely and talented girlfriend Deborah with her lovely and talented book, BadIndians.

We've got another day here, then, barring unexpected meteor strikes or volcanic eruptions, it's back to the real world.