March Tribal Expo Recap

My belly dance show was last night and...it was a success! SQUEE! Also...phew! I am very relieved it went well, relieved it is over...and kind of surprised it is only Wednesday. Seriously, this week already feels like it happened.

But since I've been talking about it so much, here's a recap of my night. With pictures!

6:30 Arrive early at the venue. Butterflies in my stomach. No lights on. No one is here! AUUUGH! It's freezing, go back to my car.

6:40 Someone is here. I can go inside! Also..BUTTERFLIES!

6:50 Decide on staging and seating arrangements, head back for costume change, hair and make up.

7:10 All dolled up and ready to go! Also BUTTERFLIES!

7:20 Final rehearsal of my dance with dance partner on dance stage. Decide on shoes...or no shoes. No shoes.

7:30 People starting to come in.

8:00 LOTS of people coming in....checking in dancers, collecting music, finalizing set lists and performance schedule, saying hi to friends who arrived for the show. And...my mom:-)

8:30 Getting antsy. Want to start dancing...but missing videographer.

8:45 Videographer is here! We DANCE!

8:46 Our cd skips. Stop dancing...wait for song to come back on

8:47 Waiting...

8:48 Waiting....

8:49 This isn't awkward at all

8:50 Oh who am I kidding? This is totally awkward!

8:51 We dance!

8:55-9:30 Announce the other dancers, watch the show, start to relax that it's going well.

9:30-11Take pictures, catch up with friends. Eat! Change into normal clothes. Sign dancers up for April's show. Relax!

11:00 Think about next show. Get butterflies.

And here are the pictures!

My dance duo opening the show after the long delay

Belly dance duet

Group shot of all the performers

Jenna from Philly Lit Night came!

Happy that the show went well (with a few hitches) at the end of the night.

Gorgeous and fun photo by my friend Sergio Hererra

Friday Five (Birthday Edition)

1. WHEEEE! It's my BIRTHDAY today!!!! So excited!

2. It's all Dr. Seuss' Birthday. And in his honor and the fact that it's Read Across America Day (I seriously have the BEST birthday ever) I'm throwing a Seuss party for my kids at the library!

3. So not a fan of facebook's new timeline. I woke up to over 50 birthday messages (EEEH YAY! I love you guys) but then spent about 50 minutes trying to figure out how to see those messages and say thank you.

4. As an early birthday present to myself last night, I bought special editions of my favorite books of ALL time! The Secret Garden and A Little Princess! (You can never own enough editions of your favorite books)

5. And I talk about both of these books in an interview I did today over at Farah Penn's Blog. Soooooo if you'd like to (because it's my birthday...check it out and show the interview some love).

6. This one's for good luck;)

Happy Friday!!!!

Announcing: The YA Philly Book Club

So excited to announce that I have joined forces with the uber fabulous K.M. Walton, author of CRACKED to form a YA book club in Philly!


The Plan: The last Sunday of the month, we'll meet in a different bookstore, discuss a different book, and basically have a blast.

Who Can Come: Anyone and everyone is welcome to attend. Writers, bloggers, non-writers, non-bloggers. You just have to want to read YA, want to talk about it...and, well...you kind of need to live near Philly.

When: Our FIRST meeting will take place on Sunday, March 25th at 4:30PM in the Chester County Book and Music Company, one of our favorite indies!

How: If you want to come (please come, I want you to come) then shoot me an email, and nominate a book to read. Every month we'll take book nominations, and let the book club vote on a read (all books must be in print--no arcs, and no out of print treasures).

So I am super super excited about this! Also, I've created an Events Tab that you should check out so you can stay up to date on all the cool things happening :-)

UPDATE: We have book nominations for our first meeting.
1. John Green, THE FAULT IN OUR STARS (2 nominations)
2. Stephanie Perkins, LOLA AND THE BOY NEXT DOOR
3. Maggie Stiefvater, THE SCORPIO RACES
4. Jennifer Donnelly, REVOLUTION

And Then My Show Exploded

In non-writing news...I mentioned the other week that I'm now hosting a monthly belly dance expo in Jenkintown. This is a revival of a show I used to put on every month a few years ago (before I took a dance hiatus, got my masters, wrote a book, signed with an agent...you know, normal stuff).

And since I've just jumped back into the world of belly dancing and this was my first show...I kind of expected it to be small. Like really small. Like maybe if we were lucky we'd have three performances scheduled and my mom would be in the audience.

Well...according to my Facebook Event Page...this is NOT the case.

We now have over 30 people attending and we're up to 7 amazing performances, and I even have some performers lined up for the April show.

I'm kind of blown away.

And now I'm also a little nervous. 

Ok, I'm A LOT nervous. Not just because I'm hosting, but because it's my first big show in years and...along with my dance partner, I'm the opening number!

EEK!

We have a lot of practice to do!

Oh and in case any of you are local and want to come--check out the FB page. I know some of the Philly Lit Night regulars are thinking of coming-which OMG, this is making both of my worlds collide.

So yeah...aside from my current writing project...this is what will be on my mind until March 6th is over.

Has anyone else had any big surprises lately?

Philly Lit and Breathless Reads Recap

Hey Guys! Just got back to the real world for an event-filled three day weekend.

Saturday kicked everything off with an afternoon of writing at one of our favorite indies, Chester County Books and Music. Although admittedly, Donna and I did sneak off for sushi at one point.

After sushi (tofu for me) and writing and a little book shopping we headed over to the Iron Hill Brewery for official Philly Lit Night shenanigans.

Christine Danek (pictured above), Ilene Wong and Simon C. Larter

Simon C. Larter, Jessica Corra (AFTER YOU), Paul Joseph

K.M. Walton (CRACKED), Kelly Lyman, Donna Gambale, Me

Donna Gamabale, Amy Garvey (COLD KISS)

Sara T.K. DeSabato, Janine Burgan

And the most memorable moment of the night...when newcomer Tony arrived, he walked around  holding a sign with Simon's twitter handle on it until he found us! Awesome--also a really great way to meet us!

After Iron Hill the FNC and our last standing Philly Lit Night member, Paul Joseph went for coffee.

Sunday was Penguin's Breathless Reads Tour at The Doylestown Bookshop (another fabulous indie!). It was super fun getting to meet Marie Lu (LEGEND) and Andrea Cremer (THE NIGHTSHADE SERIES) for the first time. And so nice to see Beth Revis (ACROSS THE UNIVERSE) and Jessica Spotswood (BORN WICKED) again.

Beth Revis (ACROSS THE UNIVERSE), Jessica Spotswood (BORN WICKED), Marie Lu (LEGEND), and Andrea Cremer (NIGHTSHADE)

Beth Revis, Me, Marie Lu, Jamie Bennett (The Perpetual Page Turner), Jenna (Avid Reader Musings), Vivian (Confessions of a Vi3tbabe)

OMG captioning is getting exhausting--Jamie, Vivian, Beth, Jenna, Marie, Jessica, Andrea and Me!

Following the book signing, Jamie, Jenna, Vivian and Yan (Books By Their Cover) and I headed off to dinner.

My night ended by heading over to Sara's for a mini President's Day Writing Retreat which may or may not have been productive. I'm going to say productive. So all in all, awesome weekend.

And now...I have papers to grade.

Philly Lit Night Tomorrow!

Just a quick reminder that the greatest event you'll ever go to on a Saturday that falls on February 18, 2012 when you have nothing else to do and you live in or near, or almost near Philly...is TOMORROW!

What: Philly Lit Night
When: Saturday, February 18th
Time: 4pm
Place: Iron Hill Brewery and Restaurant, 3 West Gay Street, West Chester, PA
Why: Because we're awesome and you're awesome and we're interested in seeing how much awesome can possibly fit into one room before the universe implodes.

Also:
For anyone who wants to get some writing done before the meet up--with company--the First Novels Club will be at Chester County Book and Music writing around 1pm until we head over to Iron Hill.

Can't wait to see everyone tomorrow:-)

My DC Adventure

Hey Guys!

I'm back from another mini-road trip adventure. This time to DC to attend Jessica Spotswood's Born Wicked Launch Party. And I had a blast!

First I met up with Jeri Smith-Ready in Maryland where she whisked me away to one of my favorite vegan restaurants, Great Sage!

The food is so good, it kind of makes me wish I lived in Maryland...

After stuffing ourselves we then headed to the launch party where I got to meet a ton of the super cool writers in the DC area, and of course, see Jessica and get our copies of Born Wicked signed! I also got to try the signature Born Wicked cocktail which was blue and super yummy and welcome after walking through some seriously frigid wind to the venue.

Jessica signing books.

Jeri and Jessica! Two of the sweetest writers on the planet!

Here I am with Jessica.

I got to hang out with Cristin Terrill!

And the super sweet Sarah Enni!

Hanging with Jeri!

I finally got to meet the super fabulous Sara McClung!

I didn't get pictures with everyone but I also had super fun conversations with Caroline T. Richmond, Lynn Colt,  Jessica BS (who also gave me the sad news about Whitney Houston via twitter), and more!

DC Writers--I think you're all super cool and I hope I get to hang out with all of you again soon. 

After grabbing some coffee, Jeri and I headed out, and I was preparing to make the drive back to Philly when this happened:

Dangerous Snow Squalls!

The combo of the severe light snow and my mom's worried text messages about driving, convinced me to spend the night in Maryland, thus extending my adventure by a super fun extra night. Jeri and I have a history of being trapped by snow in February anyway.

But now it's back to the real world and I need to get some serious writing done.

How was everyone else's weekend?