Who Knew at the End of the Day

I woke up early on Saturday. I had to head out to the SCBWI and WIFYR Pro Day. I had my ipad and had prepared my presentation on Picture Books from Spark to Book Dummy or from Spark to Book, Dummy.

Who knew that at the end of the day I would end up at the Great Salt Lake with two people I didn’t know, and hadn’t met until that morning. But here we are at the Great Salt Lake: Rotem Moscovich, the Senior Editor from Disney-Hyperion, in New York City, Claudia Mills, a great chapter book writer from Colorado, and me, a children’s book illustrator from Utah. To make things even more interesting, the picture was taken by a Navajo from the four corners area who said he had given up his canoe and had bought a yacht.

Rotem and Claudia wanted to go to the Great Salt Lake. They just wanted to touch it …until they saw the swarm of brine flies that covered the shore line. So I touched the lake, and they touched the hand that touched the lake, then quickly washed their hands. Sometimes you get connected to people. You hear them talk about their publishing house. You hear them read from one of their chapter books and you chat while you are driving out to touch the Great Salt Lake.