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Hello Lovelies!

Wow! It's been a long time since I've done just a general update-y post.

As you might remember, I've been swamped with school things lately, but because of Columbus Day (blech what a terrible "holiday"), I don't have class on Monday, so I had a bit of extra time this week. Also my school hosted the Boston Globe Horn Book Awards on Friday night which I was lucky enough to be able to attend, and holy oh my goodness.

First of all, the winners were very gracious people. They all got to give little speeches except for a few who were unable to attend, and it was so nice hearing them speak! I love listening to writers and illustrators talk about their creative process and how they get ideas and what they do with them. I think it interests me because I so desperately want to be a writer.

While it was very interesting listening to all of them speak, and I was definitely in awe of all of them, I was most excited to see Gene Luen Yang. And I was not disappointed!!! There were signing tables afterwards, and he signed my book:



I get really awkward around people I find impressive -- like even professors and general people around me--and he was very nice. He asked me whether I was going to school or working, and I said going to school and I talked about how weird it was moving from Montana to Boston, and he was really kind and didn't seem bothered at all that I was basically a stuttering mess. I'm sure he gets that a lot though.

I wish I had been able to say more. I wish I'd been able to say, "I've only recently started to realize how white-washed the field of young adult literature is, and a huge part of that is because I read American Born Chinese at the same time that I started to follow more blogs that dealt with diversity in young adult literature. And I wanted to thank you for reminding me how important it is to have representations of all people in literature. I recommend your books to everyone because they're fun and funny and while they're serious about the problems Chinese-Americans (and Chinese people in general i.e. Boxers & Saints) face, they are also about so many other things." I also maybe should have mentioned that I was studying fan responses to his works for one of my classes, but that felt awkward too.

I'd been having a sort of rough time with school lately because I was getting frustrated about the constraints of academia and the fact that I want to graduate in two years while apparently most people complete the program in two and a half years. So going to the Horn Book Awards was such a nice way to remind myself of why I want to do this, and how even though it's scary to be going to an expensive school in an expensive town, I chose to for this reason. It made me feel good about my choices again.

Also, I spent like 20 minutes talking to this woman who worked for Macmillan Children's Publishing Group, and that was really cool because her job is one which I had been considering quite a bit. And it sounds soo cooool. So that was quite fun too.

In the last week, I also made a pretty amazing apple streusel pie and went to Maine and saw a lighthouse and listened to good music. So overall, it's been a pretty fantastic week.

What have you been up to lovelies?? Let me know in the comments. And feel free to reach me via other social media -- check out my pretty new links in the top right!!


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