I am in Seattle. It is strange. I grew up here but don't go back very often. The Ruby Oliver books are all set here. It's like driving through Roo's life. In a town car, though. And also driving through my childhood, which was not really like Roo's, but which has some of the same settings. 

I drank two lattes, both made as if a latte is just what you are offering when you say "you want a cup of coffee?" -- whereas where I live, it's a pot you probably made an hour ago, and that's fine. But the lattes were really good. I was hyper! 

I went to
Mockingbird Bookstore, a charming children's shop in my old home neighborhood of Greenlake;
Third Place Books in Lake Forest, which is huge and has extremely knowledgeable kids book staff,
Elliott Bay, which wins the beauty pageant, it is so gorgeous and I shopped there all the time as a kid and they still have the castle you can play in!
and Secret Garden, which is really charming and I had so much fun there I had to leave before I'd properly inspected the children's area. 

All these stores have SIGNED copies of Invisible Inkling, yes, early! I also signed most Lockhart titles, some picture books and Toys books at all places. Thank you to all the great booksellers I met. 

Tomorrow (Wed), I am off the Seattle grid, cavorting with old high school pals, but you can read my ramblings about trying to be a good person and the Ruby Oliver books over at Readergirlz -- where they are also giving away a set of Roo books during their awesome Rock the Drop initiative. Read more about it here. 

Thursday, Seattle Public Library downtown!  Teen event, 4:30 pm. Librarians and other adult-type peeps, 7 pm. Please come. They promise cupcakes, in celebration of Treasure Map of Boys. 

Friday thru Saturday I'm at the (all sold-out) awesome SCBWI Western Washington conference, along with Joe Monti, Holly Black, Dan Santat and a host of other interesting writers and editors. Looking forward to it.

Then back to kind-of normal life. 

xoE