Back from New York!

Whew!

Spent the weekend in New York, courtesy of Dial books, who flew me up to do a little media training in prep for a book tour later in the year. (I am apparently doing a book tour this fall!) I’ve never been to NYC before, and brought Kevin along to keep me from getting lost or being eaten by wolves. (He used to live in Queens.)

It was pretty awesome. I don’t think I could live there, but still some amazing stuff to see. We went to the natural history museum (greatest thing ever!) and then the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Probably we shouldn’t have tried to do both of those in one day, as I spent the rest of the weekend with feet like hamburger, but it was still worth it!

Our hotel room was approximately the size of a shoe box and it was WHITE. White walls, white marble, white furniture, white curtains. And blue carpet, which only made everything whiter. It was a sort of 70′s vision of the future, ala Sleeper.  Great bathtub, though.

The food was amazing. (The cost of drinks was…equally amazing, although not in a good way.) We hit a couple of the required tourist spots. We went on the subway and were smooshed in crowds. Crazy people yelled obscenities at us. (I am told that this is all part of the authentic NYC experience.) We did some recreational shopping. I bought a beaver skull.

It was particularly awesome to meet my editor at long last–eight years we’ve been working together!–and my art director, who does all the Dragonbreath layouts, and the whole crew at Dial who make it all happen. (The number of people required to make a children’s book as absurdly successful as Dragonbreath will fit into a conference room with free muffins, but only barely!) I got to meet all the people in marketing who handle the Dragonbreath account and the salespeople who sell to Barnes & Noble and Amazon and the indie bookstores. A couple of Penguin VIPs even showed up to say hello and to get books signed, so that was pretty awesome too.

All in all, great trip. I’d love to go back, since there’s so much more in NYC to see, but I was glad to get home to Ben and the beagle (one of whom is sleeping and one of whom is currently clawing at a plastic bag to try and get my attention.)

Originally published at Tea with the Squash God. You can comment here or there.