Merry Christmas

Wishing you all
a very
Merry Christmas.

Be sure to visit Santa's
website!
You can even read
his blog.
Thanks "e" for the link.

Also check out
Make-a Flake
where you can cut and save
your own snowflake.

Another Win!

The luck continues! I just won a “consolation prize” from 7-imp. A copy of Piper Reed: Navy Brat by Kimberly Willis Holt. Woohoo! (Consolation only because it's not the autographed copy.) At first I didn't think I was familiar with Ms. Holt's work, but then I realized she wrote the picture book Waiting for Gregory which I've read may times. I'm really looking forward to reading more of her work. You can check out some great interviews that were just posted today with Kimberly Willis Holt at 7-Imp and Cynsations.

Thank you Seven Impossible Things for the drawing!

Seven Things and Thank Yous

I was tagged to list 7 things about me by Jennifer at Art, Words, Life. Now I did this before, so I'm not too sure you want to hear more weird things about me, although I do remember talking about something I had won then. Anyway, after hearing yesterday that I won two more prizes from the Blogging for a Cure 2007 event, I started thinking, it happens that in the last month or so I have won books or art 7 times! Count 'um. Seven times! And the winners are...

1. On My Block and a signed Giclee prints of The Garden of 32 Cats by Sara Kahn thanks to Kate's Book Blog (Can't wait to see this book! Sara is one of a number of illustrators involved in the making of the book.)

2.One of these books signed by Daniel J. Mahoney thanks to Paradise Found. (I don't know which book yet, he gets to pick. Yea! A surprise in the mail. Man, "A Really Good Snowman" looks really good!)

3. Block Party Today and a signed postcard of Two Christmas Mice illustrated by Stephanie Roth thanks to Writing With a Broken Tusk.

4. Un-Brella signed Giclee print from the book written and illustrated by Scott Franson thanks to Scott Franson. (Well, this one I really won for my local library, but it's still a win!)

5. The Name of This Book is Secret by Pseudonymous Bosch thanks to Fuse #8.

6. Sightings by Sam Keen thanks to Chronicle Books Blog (Yeah, they have blog. Did you know that?)

7. The Lonely Moose by John Segal thanks to....sorry, more on that later.

(Earlier this year I got a few other books in the mail. You can see those here and here and here.)

So this is a big thank you to all of you out there who are taking the time to run these contests, and send out ARC's and F&G's. Winning is fun! Especially when my bookshelf devoted to signed books expands!

Hmm, I guess I have to tag people too. How about all of those listed above. If you want to join in, you're officially tagged!

Here's how it works:

1) Link to the person who tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
2) Share 7 facts about yourself.
3) Tag 7 random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs.
4) Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

What's your level?

Who would've guessed that!

I'd seen this floating around a few different places and thought I'd give my blog a check. Interesting..

Pay it Forward!

Thanks to A Fuse #8 Production, who thanks Finding Wonderland , here's a link to some great information via Dutton's new website for those of us submitting manuscripts. It's called Dutton's Writer's Room. Wow! Maybe other publisher's will pick up on this idea and make everyone's job easier.

Flattered or furious?

I noticed an huge increase in traffic to my website over the weekend. I've been getting a steady amount of hits since the featured artist gig at SCBWI. I do notice a jump when I have a hot post here on my blog, but nothing like this. So at first I'm thinking someone linked my website on theirs, but the stat counter wasn't showing a referring link. Then I thought I'd just keep my eyes open, I'd come across the reason eventually.

But my continuing curiosity got the better of me and I decided to do a Google search. Look at what I came up with! I don't know if I should be flattered or furious! Ok, I leaning toward furious. I clearly have the copyright notice and "These images may not be used without permission." on my website, my blog, and my online portfolio. I was not contacted at any time by this artist (yeah, artist...shouldn't an artist know better?) My name is listed on the index page (with the wrong title for the piece) but it is not to be found anywhere on this page! Look familiar?

What do you think I need to do? Any other artists out there having to deal with this? How did you handle it? Did anyone from Redwood City see this at the festival?

Remember the Cybils

Have you voted for your favorite children's book yet? There's still time! Go to he Cybils blog and be heard! The Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards give the public the chance to nominate their favorite children's books from 2007.

Nominations close at midnight Chicago time on Wednesday, Nov. 21.