I spent the morning printing up back email and filing, and then working on some of the blurbs for books for this website. Not glamorous work, but necessary stuff. This is the business slog that I have to go through now and again so that either Heidi–my P.A.– or Adam–my webmaster–can do their jobs.

By the by, the website now has a book trailer section thanks to Adam. Only two trailers so far, but Adam will get more done as time goes on.

Wrote another poem for the 30 Poems in 30 Days group.

And then 4-6 was the big Michelson Gallery annual Children’s Illustrator show. Some of the folks there: Mo Willems, Jeanne Birdsall, Diane deGroat, Wendell Minor, Barry Moser, Jane Dyer, Kathryn Brown, Jarrett Krosochka, Bob Marstall, Brian Karas (who I’d never met before but has just finished illustrating my upcoming SWITCHING ON THE MOON poetry anthology), Mordicai Gerstein, Norton Juster, Nonny Hogrogian and her husband poet David Kherdian, Scott Fischer, Susan Harris, Liz Finney, Leslea Newman,  Barbara Diamond Goldin, Rich Michelson, CArol Weiss, Jeff Mack, Susan Pearson, Alice Schertle, Rebecca Guay who had some of the artwork for my LOST DRAGON to show me, Shelley Rotner, designer Michael Nelson, agent Jeff Dwyer, publishing executive Rubin Pfeffer, plus my daughter Heidi Stemple. I know I am forgetting folks and it already reads like a Who’s Who of children’s books.

Halfway through the party and the viewing of the artwork, I was given the second annual Norton Juster award for my service to children’s literature, and gave a speech from the balcony of the gallery. Then lots of hugs and congratulations later, a bunch of us went off to dinner and continued talking into the night.