Alert! Alert! Author sighting, author sighting!!!

Yes, I fly out tonight to Kansas City, going to Kansas City, Kansas City here I come (also the place everything’s up to date in). This is for the Kansas City Literary Festival, an all-day orgy of readers, writers and books. There are five stages featuring culinary presentations, kids’ activities, books for sale, and writers and poets galore (click on the link for an alphabetical list). Location, location, location, and best of all it is absolutely FREE to all comers. If you like to read and you’re within driving distance of KC, this is where you want to be this Saturday. See you there!

Here is where you can see me doing what:

Friday, May 16
10am
I’ll be dropping by the I Love a Mystery Bookstore.

Noon
I’ll be on Fox 4 News at Noon.

2pm
Central Resource Library for a presentation and signing. I don’t know what I’m going to do here yet, I want to get a feel for what the crowd wants. My talk called ‘The Gift,’ the one about my mom, the one that never fails to make grown men cry? My First Lines workshop? Q&A? There might also be a very nice door prize, donated by yours truly. Show up and see!

6:30pm
LitFest Reception at the Linda Hall Library. Hang out with all the literary folk attending the LitFest. I promise not to bite if you ask me where I get all my ideas.

Saturday
1:10-1:40pm, Specialty Stage, Country Club Plaza
Me and Nancy Pickard mix it up. She’s always fun, who knows what we’ll do?

1:45pm-3pm
Signing

5:20pm-6:10pm, Main Stage, Country Club Plaza
I give my “Low Tide and Libraries” talk, the one that never fails to make grown librarians cry. It’s about growing up on a boat in the Gulf of Alaska and climbing the 42-foot ladder to the dock to go to the Seldovia Public Library, one musty room in the basement of the City Hall that was heaven and haven for me in my childhood.

Then I get to go have dinner with librarians, bound to be a blast because librarians are some of my favorite people, and then home again, home again.

Hope to see you there!