I spent last week doing something so new and different that I am not sure I have the words to describe the experience.

Back in the fall, I learned about the Highlights Foundation Founders Workshop, titled Making the Web Work for You and I applied.  I was accepted and began to prepare for my first trip on my own since Caroline was born, eight and a half years ago. Needless to say, Rob and the girls did wonderfully and with a few small exceptions, I’m not even sure they noticed I was gone. It’s amazing what extra dessert and tv can do to a girl’s enjoyment of her week.

 

 

 

I learned more in five days than I have in an awfully long time.

I learned about so very many places to go and things to do to expand my conversation about literacy. You can now find me at Twitter, Pinterest, Goodreads. I learned that putting video on my blog is neither hard nor scary.

And I learned that it is inspiring and lovely to make new friends who share my love of all things related to children’s books. Our group was small. I ‘knew’ a few of the faculty from interactions on-line but truly knew no one before the workshop began. We were such a motley crew, a bit Gilligan’s Island-ish, I thought at one point- those of you who were there can start the casting now. But somehow it all worked. We learned and laughed and ate the most glorious food together.

My fellow participants, Doug Wechsler, Clara Gillow Clark, MW Penn, Robin, Nija and I were incredibly lucky to have the most impressive faculty with us. Each expert seemed to know more than the one seated next to them. Their expertise and experience were diverse and we learned from all they had to offer.

We were able to spend time with

Bobbie Combs and Laurina Cashin of We Love Children’s Books,

Lindsey Levitt (pictured below), author of the Princess for Hire  series and Sean Griswold’s Head,

Katie Davis, illustrator of Little Chicken’s Big Day and developer of the podcast, Brain Burps About Books and

Jules (pictured below) of Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast.

How very lucky I feel to have shared this time with amazing people learning such inspiring information. More to come, I am sure…