I just got back from an awesome not-quite-24 hours in Ottawa with fellow Penguin Random House YA authors Morgan Rhodes and Natale Ghent. Part of what made the trip awesome was the company of those two lovely women. The other parts?

The wonderful librarians of the Ottawa Public Library who organized and hosted the events (two of whom are pictured with us below):

The amazing sign and display that greeted us at the library:

And of course all of the enthusiastic teens who asked questions and shared their thoughts during our school visit, and hung out with us at the library event. Especially one reader named Artina who brought five of my books for me to sign (and would have had one more, except the bookseller on hand wasn’t selling the one she didn’t already have) and brought me a present, which was so sweet of her and I don’t think has ever happened to me before:

Also awesome? The hotel upgraded our rooms to “romantic luxury suites”, which included a huge “Roman” bathtub (I tried to take a picture but it didn’t really turn out, so let’s just say this thing must have held at least three times more water than my tub at home does), and very comfy bed, and some interesting decor…

Which is relevant to the new project I happened to be line editing during the trip’s occasional spare moments, in a way I will some day explain. 😀 I think I’ll take that as a good sign, anyway.