Saturday, June 28, 2008

Magic Happens in Downtown Disney

Betsy Bird of SLJ's A Fuse #8 Production and Jen Robinson of Jen Robinson's Book Page, were kind enough to set aside time to join me last night for dinner during their visit to Anaheim for ALA.

We ate, drank, and helped Betsy create footage for her blog video in Downtown Disney. Our food came about five minutes after placing our order. Perhaps it was less than five minutes. Either way, it was suspiciously fast, like magic.


I do have a few regrets about the evening. One was that I didn't bring them a copy of Singing to the Sun (sorry, ladies - you'll have to pick one up at the booth). I also regret not bringing along a camera, although I suspect that if I Say Please, Betsy will arrange for the photo of the three of us to reach me. Another regret was that I didn't order a Sangria. They looked beautiful and were pretty tasty, from what I heard.

The discussion over dinner ranged from the Irish travelers that Betsy ran into to the six hour drive for Jen; the upcoming
ALA events, the interesting culture that surrounds Disneyland and of course, blogging and blogging for outside sources.

We shared our individual experiences about the power of reading and being able to enjoy this magic with the young people in our lives. This, perhaps, was the highlight of my night as I talked about my son and could feel the same motherly-type pride that both Jen and Betsy expressed while sharing stories about the little ones that they enjoy reading with.

It's always a pleasure for me to hit the road and meet with people familiar with children's literature and to get feedback, from a marketing point of view. I head to the Stanford Professional Publishing Course in less than two weeks so I am preparing for more networking with others in the field. For now, and over the next three days, I will continue to share the magic that surrounds ALA.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is a lovely photo. Remind me via email and I'll send it to you pronto!

Jen Robinson said...

It was great to finally get to meet you in person, Sondra. Thanks so much for including me in your dinner. Next time we'll make sure that you get a Sangria, too.

Thanks again!!

Sondra Santos LaBrie said...

I hope you both (and everyone else, too) had a safe trip back.