Photos galore!

Here are some pics from the fantastic event we had on Thursday June 26th at the Wallingford Public Library. My Ninja Webmaster neglected to snap some photos of the French toast sticks (yummy!) and pink lemonade the amazing Jennifer Nash made for everyone but you can just imagine them as you're listening to the Friends theme song:

And here I am with the amazing YA librarian herself, Ms. Jennifer "Rock n Roll Summer" Nash!

Thanks to everyone who came and to Jennifer and her husband Jerry who did a terrific job putting everything together! Can't wait to come back and visit again!

And for the teens in Wallingford, be sure to get yourself involved with the summer reading program Jennifer is having and you can win a signed copy of ALL ABOUT VEE or LOVE, MEG!

Random Thanks on a Friday

1. Thanks to all who read my guest blog at Teen Book Review last week and who entered to win the signed copy of LOVE, MEG. And the winner is: girlJordyn! Yay!! As soon as Jocelyn gets me your address, I will ship it out asap so you can enjoy it this summer! I hope you'll let me know what you think when you've finished. (btw, love your wordpress blog, ms. girljordyn!)

2. Thanks to all who attended the event at the Wallingford Public Library last night. What a fantastic time we had - me most of all! Great questions, great energy. I hope everyone who read or will read MEG will email me or post about the book. I love to get feedback from readers!

3. Extra special thanks to Jennifer Nash, the YA librarian at WPL who did an amazing job getting everything together and encouraging people to read my books. She made French toast sticks - and for everyone who read MEG, you know what French toast is all about - and played the Rembrandts and served pink lemonade! :) Ninja's Pics will go up on the website very soon!

3A. More thanks to Jerry Nash, Jennifer's husband, fellow Gemini and science teacher, who had great questions and owns the Friends soundtrack (yes!!) and who gave me a copy of the Friends theme song on CD for my very own!

4. Thanks to reporters Carrie MacMillan at the Waterbury Republican-American and Carole Goldberg at the Hartford Courant for helping me publicize my events and books. With their attention, the word is getting out that MEG and VEE are pretty cool books to read.

4a. Lots of thanks to my new special reporter friend, Stacey Graham Hunt, at the Meriden Record-Journal, who interviewed me over the phone and then came to my reading last night and who I'm so excited to be seeing when she comes out to LA this summer AND takes ballet class with me...yay!!

5. Thanks in advance to everyone who comes to Borders on Sunday at 2PM! I can see into the future and see that we're enjoying Seattle's Best Coffee and some sweet treats as we're talking about VEE. Yum!

SSP Part 2

The fact is that whenever I have anything remotely interesting going on - a school or library visit, a reading, a contest or guest blog - that's the only thing I can think about. So when I open up my blog, I think to myself, "Hmm...what can I tell people about today? I know, my blah-blah-blah is happening today/tomorrow/a year from now. I'll write about that!"

And that is exactly how you get fifty million posts about the same thing. Frankly, I have a one-track mind (altho it rarely thinks about Frank).

So here we go again, Leigh with her singular mode of thinking:

Tonight at 7PM, I will be at the Wallingford Public Library to read from and talk about LOVE, MEG. And on Sunday, the 29th at 2PM, I will be reading and signing ALL ABOUT VEE at the Borders in Farmington.

I really do hope people can come. In all honestly, it's not about book sales, it's just boring to be alone or with Head Honcho (he already knows all my stories!) and I'll end up eating all the snacks. So if you know people who might be interested, bring them along or send them in your place and make them pretend it's you.

As we used to write in correspondence at a company I temped for, Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Shameless self-promotion

Because if I don't do it, who will?

Are you in the Connecticut area? Do you need a reason to be?

Then come on down to the Wallingford Public Library on Thursday, June 26 at 7PM (that's tomorrow night!) where I'll be reading from and talking about LOVE, MEG!

Not near there? Not free that night? Well, then come to the Borders in Farmington on Sunday, June 29 at 2PM. Coffee, desserts, and ALL ABOUT VEE!

And I hope you all got your copy of the Waterbury Republican-American newspaper on Tuesday! Did you check out the Lifestyle section and see the fabulous article by feature writer Carrie MacMillan about yours truly? No? Well, take a look here on-line and I'll scan it when I get home so you can see me in all my full-color glory. Yay, technology!

The queue, the queue!

(For those of you in the Connecticut area, be sure to grab a copy of the Waterbury Republican-American newspaper today and check out the Women section - there's an article about me by feature writer Carrie MacMillan!)

Recent selections from the Netfix queue:

"Sweeney Todd" - I adore Johnny Depp, honestly I do, but I just could not get into this movie. Bloody yes, it was like "Hamlet," where pretty much everyone dies and I don't think I'm spoiling anything by saying that. Really, though, I don't dig musicals at all. Which is strange, I know, coming from someone who dances every day of her life but music, like Marge Simpson says, is none of my business. And speaking of The Simpsons...I don't like it when that show does musicals either. So although I admire Depp and Helena Bonham Carter and Alan Rickman, this movie only got 2 stars from me.

"Semi-Pro" - B-ball in the 70s sounds like such a great premise, especially with Will Ferrell at the helm, but this was just not that funny. Again, HH liked this more than I did although we both agreed the romance between Woody Harrelson and Maura Tierney was completely lame and unnecessary. We fast-forwarded through some of it, to be perfectly honest. And who was the guy living with her? Her boyfriend? Brother? Either way, it was just plain weird. Another 2-stars from me.

"Balls of Fury" - Now here is what you do with a silly movie: expect nothing. And when you do, it's much much funnier! Dan Fogler is not Jack Black but he was very good in this. In fact, the scenes before he gets to the ping-pong tournament at Chris Walken's Central American estate are better than any of the others that follow. Great supporting cast: James Hong, Maggie Q, Patton Oswalt, George Lopez (who should have been given more funny things to do). Some LOL moments but again, expect nothing and you'll enjoy it.

"The Golden Compass" - We loved this movie. Again, we were expecting nothing. I had read the Philip Pullman novel and felt, eh, I don't get it. There was so much set-up in the first book and not a lot of payoff and I didn't get to the next book. Most of the time I kept wondering what Asriel was up to in the Arctic tundra and we never went back to him. The movie distilled everything down for those of us who are denser than the 10 year olds who read the book. Of course, the cast was fantastic: I love love love Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman and the little girl, Dakota Blue Richards, was amazing! I cannot believe they are not going to make a sequel to this movie! I had heard that it was not as popular as they thought, didn't make as much money as they had expected, and that the CG was way too expensive to do a second one. I hope they change their minds because I would love to see what happens next.

And when in doubt...watch BBC's The Office.

Traveling today so I am wicked tired.

Remember the old movies with those romantic scenes of people flying across the country? Passengers got all duded up with hats and furs and jewelry (ok the furs are a little un-pc) and everything was so fancy? Yeah, well, those days - if they ever existed - are long past.

I don't mind paying for things like food because honestly, who needs crap food on a plane (although I must say, food on Alitalia and Virgin Atlantic is awesome - but that's overseas so they charge a lot of money for the tickets and pretty much have you captive for ten hours). I'd much prefer to bring my own snacks like veggies or crackers but a simple glass of water? On a cross country flight? You want to CHARGE me for that?

And paying for luggage? What IS air travel without your luggage? Should we ship our clothes ahead of time? HH thinks it won't be long before we all travel naked; the airlines will hand us those disposable paper gowns like they give you at the doctor's office.

Never too late to win free stuff!

If you're bored on a Sunday or you're too hot to move anything larger than your mouse, click on over to Teen Book Review and read my guest blog about, I don't know, whatever nonsense I'm talking about. Then post, I don't know, your name or something and you'll be entered to win a signed copy of the LOVE, MEG hardcover. Even if you already have one (cuz I'm sure you do - many, many copies, right?), maybe you want to give one as a gift!