Prince Caspian

Just got back from visiting my relatives over in Narnia. It was a wonderful trip. Per usual, we did have some difficulty reaching Narnia. We were going to use those magic rings, but the cat ate them (again) so we had to enter via Eustace's boat painting and I get seasick so that wasn't pleasant. But once there, we had a delicious Thanksgiving feast of Talking Turkey and faun-sausage stuffing...

Okay, I'm just kidding. I'd never eat a faun.

Here's a photo of me and my cousin Prince Caspian:


I love that photo. It is so supremely dorky. That's not Prince Caspian, of course. Or even the actor who plays Prince Caspian in the movie. That's just some guy in Disney World dressed up like the actor who dresses up to look like my cousin Caspian.

I was in Disney World last week and I simply had to meet him -- though I didn't see the movie, I did have an essay in the Teen Libris anthology Through the Wardrobe: Your Favorite Authors on C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia. So I wanted the photo to send to my editor at BenBella, and the whole meet-and-greet amused me so much that I had to share it with all of you too.

Hope you had a wonderful long weekend filled with family and fauns too!

Thanksgiving Recap

Just polished off the last of the leftover Thanksgiving turkey. The pizza place will be pleased. They've missed us.

We had a busy holiday weekend. (Okay, yes, it was ages ago. I'm a bit behind here. Sorry!) Here's the quick recap:

Thursday: Ate a lot. We calculated that there was enough food for each of us to have 2 pounds of turkey, 10 meatballs, 5 slices of beef, 3 pies, and 6 tons of stuffing. We're good eaters here.

Friday: Book signing at the Borders in Meriden, CT. Great place for a book signing, and a great day for it too. This Borders is in a mall so there was quite a bit of foot traffic on Black Friday. The super-nice Borders folk set me up with a lovely table right near the mall entrance. I talked to lots of people. In fact, I found myself saying hello so often that at one point, I realized I'd said hello to a Children's Place shopping bag. (It had photos of people on it and was carried by right at my eye level.) Thankfully, the bag did not reply.

Saturday: Reading and signing at the Borders in Shrewsbury, MA. Another great store with super-nice staff. They set up a big, beautiful rack of my books in the reading area, and then wheeled out a handcart full of Into the Wilds to the front of the store for the signing. I really, really wanted to build a big, beautiful, purple igloo made of copies of Into the Wild around me, but a little voice in my head whispered that that might be a tad unprofessional. The little voice in my head was undeterred by the fact that having little voices in one's head is also a tad unprofessional.

Purple Igloo Building Materials

Sunday: Apologized to family for spending most of the weekend at bookstores. Returned home.

Next blog post: Tuesday's visit to Bancroft School in Worcester.

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Anyone have any interesting turkey stories? How about tofurkey stories? (How much do you love that word? Tofurkey. I could say it all day. Tofurkey, tofurkey, tofurkey...)