Happy tales from recent author events & other sweet stories from readers

My best story from the Baldwin Public Library Book Fair is that early on, I was talking to someone who was buying my book when another woman approached, with a big smile and wave, which I returned. Do I know her? I wondered. When I finished up with someone, I found out her name is Sharon. She told me that she got up early from (or skipped?) her nap to be there. She had my book postcard for a year and wanted to buy two copies of How Happy Is a Lark? One was for her grandchild. How wonderful!

The book fair was really fun once again, with about 18 author tables around the perimeter of the library’s beautiful entrance room. My side of the room was mostly children’s book authors with adult books facing us. I remembered a few authors from last year. And I was pleased that I remembered one of their names! It was Ed who’d bought a copy of my book at the end of last year’s event. He said he wanted to find out how happy a lark is. The book is at their cottage up north, “for the kids.” A couple of women who attended together in the final half hour of the event talked to me for a while and purchased five of my books between them. They were really kind and interested. One had a friend who rescues rabbits and she bought her a copy.

At the start of the event, we pulled up to a spot right out front of the library to unload quickly, but our car was facing the wrong way. We ended up with a $30 parking ticket. I called and left a message for the police department explaining the situation. A few days later, I had a voicemail that they’d cancel the ticket! Very nice. I had no tickets in Birmingham, they said, which was, of course, in my favor. I appreciated their understanding.

During a weekend in November, on the day of an impending snow storm, I had an author event in Saline at Brewed Awakenings Cafe with two other picture book authors, Megan Haley and Becky Lane. They are brand new authors this year (big CONGRATS to them!). One had a publisher, the other one is self-published. It was fun to talk about our various experiences, share ideas and commiserate with them. Between the weather and the Michigan-Ohio State football game, maybe the time of day (2-4), who knows, the event was pretty much as quiet as a mouse. Not a single child was there for cafe crafts. As we were packing up after our two hours, some children came in with their family. Figures. We laughed about it.

Megan’s mother was there. Toward the end of our event, she bought one of each of our books, for her daughter’s collection. That was so nice of her. I bought a couple of Megan’s books today on Etsy for Christmas gifts for grandnieces. It’s called The Worry Balloon and it’s a terrific book for little worriers. I think the book could help adult sized worriers as well. I would have benefitted from the book as a child. The parents of the other author were there, too, which was sweet.

The third author/book event I took part in over the past couple of months was called BBQ & Books. It was in Saline at an event space called Perfect Scenario. An author I know, Ken MacGregor, invited me to take part, which was really nice of him. He writes horror and as it turns out, every other author he invited to this event was a writer of horror. It was little ole children’s picture book author surrounded by authors of horror. I thought this could be the set up for a horror book: “Children’s picture book author mysteriously disappears.” 

I believe I sold five books (two Larks, three Thickets) that night. Best of all was an idea I got from an author at Brewed Awakenings. I held a raffle for a rabbit stuffie. At first, I thought I’d ask people to count the rabbits in Into the Thicket to enter their email and sign up for my e-news. While things were quiet early in the event, I started to count rabbits and there are so many, I thought better to forget that part. There was an adorable little guy buzzing around the place with his Dad. During one of their passes around, they stopped at my table. I told the Dad about my raffle and that he would be my only entry, making his chances promising. Happily, they entered. When there were about 20 minutes left of the event, I “called it” and they were the winner! I wish I’d had a photo of the little fella’s face when I handed him the rabbit and told him that he won, but it is in my mind. Such a happy and sweet smile. A bit later, he was zooming around the place holding out the book and kind of screeching! What a happy author moment that was. I’ll always remember it (I hope). I would have loved to have caught that on video! His parents let me catch a few photos of him and them with our book and said it was okay to post. He was understandably wound up and couldn’t really stay still for a photo, but I captured a cute little series of pictures of him moving around with the book and the rabbit.

Shortly before Christmas, I received the sweetest text from a friend’s daughter about Into the Thicket: “Hi Gail! I just wanted to let you know that Arlo has really been enjoying Into the Thicket (smile emoji) the last several weeks we’ve been reading it every night, and now he has the story memorized and “reads” it to us (laughing with tears emoji). Arlo is 5 years old. Another friend told me her  granddaughter “was so engaged with your story at just 4!! She went back many times to the injured bunny and wanted to know everything about it.”

These special connections are what writing books for children is all about. I feel beyond grateful for this new life chapter, truly a dream come true. If you read my blog, you know I consider myself to be living on “bonus time” these past three-and-a-half years since my heart surgery complications. That I survived several life-threatening happenings coinciding was against the odds.

If you’re interested, you can see the results of all the stops along my virtual book tour hosted by The Children’s Book Review. I’ve never had an experience like this before and it was a lot of fun. It was a sponsored tour (paid marketing) for building awareness of our book. Several awards that we’ve entered will be announced this month. I won’t name any of them, but I’ll let you know about anything we win. There are so many wonderful children’s books — the competition is steep. I will try to remain cautiously optimistic. Whatever happens (or doesn’t), I know that the stories like the ones in this post, are what really matter and are why we write for kiddos. The best thing, really, about awards are that as a result of any wins, more children and families will likely discover our books. 

Here we are in a shiny new year 2026. Happy New Year — may peace, love, health and happiness be yours in abundance throughout the year.