I had a great time at the Writing for Charity event at the Salt Lake City Public Library yesterday with about 200 other people. While you didn't have to be an aspiring author to attend the event, everything revolved around getting ready for publication. Shannon Hale was her usual funny self, a lot of local authors talked about what it's like to try and get published, and Brandon Mull thought I deserved a free copy of this book just because I wear glasses.



And I got to meet the wonderful bionic author Mette Ivie Harrison whom I've wanted to meet for a few years now because of all the things I've heard about her. A friend interviewed her for The Deseret News and thought she was one of the kindest people she's ever met and my other friend told me about all these triathlons Mette runs, so I wanted to meet the woman who does it all.

I was also able to be a part of Sydney Salter Husseman's workshop where we reviewed the first page of manuscripts we are all working on to get them ready to send to publishers and agents. (BTW, Sydney's first book, My Big Nose and Other Natural Disasters, will be coming out later this year.)

It was a great event, and I hope I will be able to attend again in the future. Shannon Hale assures the event that raised money to provide wheelchairs for people in third-world countries will become a yearly event.

Between Writing for Charity, meeting friends all over the Wasatch Front, baby showers and Tommy Boy parties, I did manage to get most of my stuff packed this weekend. Unfortunately, it is also stacked all over the apartment until I can ship it out tomorrow.


These boxes are in the middle of the kitchen. (I should get some kind of discount from U-Haul for this product placement.)


This stuff is in the livingroom.


These are the books that I managed to get packed before running out of boxes.


And these are all the books I still need to pack and everything I need to fit into my little '93 Ford Escort before I leave for Chicago Tuesday morning. I'm really upset to leave my bookshelves behind, but I can't afford to take any of my furniture with my with gas prices being what they are--it will end up being cheaper just to buy new stuff.

So in about 40 hours I will be saying goodbye to Salt Lake City one last time. I've been out here for more than two years now, and that doesn't include the three years I went to school in Idaho. I've made a lot of really great friends and had the opportunity to do some pretty amazing things. I really will miss it, but I know it's time to move on.