Oh, Leslie...

My friend Leslie and I have known each other since collaborating on the aptly named "World's Worst Comics" in the seventh grade, but this is the first time we've hunted mushrooms together.  Leslie scored three pounds of morels!

Reading? Writing? Nah, it's time for morels!

I'll have some news about upcoming books soon, but not this week. Late May is all about the 'shrooms. Here's a shot of my latest morel hunting companions, Tucker and Jack, with their harvest.

Much better...

...and when I got home...

...I discovered these delicate beauties on the windowsill keeping company with one of my tomato seedlings. My first photographically recorded mushroom of 2008. Coprinus ephemeroides (I think)

May Travels

Last week I had the pleasure of visiting both Michigan (60 degrees and raining) and south Texas (100 degrees and sunny). On Wednesday, the Michigan Library Association gave me the Thumbs Up Award (best YA novel) for Rash, after which there was karaoke. I always knew that YA librarians rock, but I had no idea they rocked so long and so hard. It was way cool. And instead of the usual plaque, I got a quilt made by hard-rockin punk diva Anne Heidemann, who performed a fabulous rendition of Blondie's "Call Me." Here's the quilt--front and back.

From there I went on to visit Weslaco, Texas, way down by Brownsville, just ten minutes from the border. I expected a sleepy little border town with two dogs and lots of tumbleweed, but what I got was a thriving, sprawling community with two large high schools, several thousand dogs, and no tumbleweed at all. It was a great visit--lots of smart, well-read students and super-librarian Renee Dyer. Here's a here's a photo she took of me and the book club. And now, with my spring travel schedule complete, the next three months will be devoted to finshing a new novel, hunting mushrooms, and serious indolence.