Spotlight on a Friend and Colleague

Shannon Hale and I have been playing a game of blog chicken: each of us waiting the other out. I thought for sure she'd blog about me first. Fine, Shannon. I guess it's not enough that you won a Newbery Honor Medal and I'm a hack who will never publish anything of value to anyone. You win. Again. I can wait no longer.

Her hair is longer now, and she has bangs.
I have had bangs for years. Coincidence? I think not.

So a couple of weeks ago we held the State PTA Convention. I convinced the committee to invite Shannon Hale to be our keynote speaker. There was a bit of a fight, because some people wanted Stephenie Meyer. Whatever. (Stephenie, I'm pretty sure you read my blog too, but please understand that while I enjoy your sexy vampire books, it's all about Shannon today. Maybe if you hang out with me for an hour and laugh at some of my jokes and tell a room full of people that I'm one of your dearest friends, I'll feature you another time.)

Anyway, we got Shannon to come because everyone respects my opinion (and I cry if they don't do what I want). I was ever so excited, but doubted I'd even get a chance to see her on account of being super busy doing all kinds of other conventiony things at the time she was scheduled to arrive and speak. So I'm walking along, focusing on conventiony things, and suddenly a board member accosts me, hands this woman over to me, and tells me to take care of her. Gah! Shannon Hale! I almost threw my arms around her, but stopped short of acting like a total crazy person just in time. Instead I just (non-threateningly) touched her arm and told her she was my favorite person in the whole world, and that "Goose Girl" is my favorite book in the whole world. Which is almost true--it's my favorite Y/A book in the whole world for sure, and I read a lot of Y/A.

So I took her into this room where the speakers wait to go on stage, and we sat down and commenced hanging out for what I hoped would be about ten minutes. Turns out the governor was on stage though, and he had a few things to say. Ten minutes stretched into twenty, forty . . . and we discussed the possibility that he was on drugs or something, because he allegedly stood out there and insulted all the sweet PTA moms by saying they need to work harder, volunteer more, and stop leaving all the teaching to the teachers. Maybe he has secretly decided not to run again. But the beauty of that lame talk was that I got to spend more time with Shannon, and we got to spend time making fun of the governor. Natgo showed up soon after we sat down, and we all had a great time together. Here are a few of the funny things she said:

When the governor finally stopped babbling and left (through the room we were sitting in), she said, "I'm pretty sure I smelled Nyquil on his breath."

She realized that Jon was never going to stop talking, and that all the time for the keynote address would be gone by the time she even took the stage, so she got out a highlighter and started trimming down her talk. At one point she was holding the pen over a long paragraph and trying to decide whether to leave it in or not, and she said to herself, "No. I can't cut this. It's too good." I said, "Wow. Your own writing is so brilliant, even to yourself, that you can't possibly deny the audience the pleasure of hearing it?" She started laughing and said, "Oh, I know how that sounded. But I promise I really am quoting someone else here." When she got onstage, it turns out that quote was from a little girl who wrote her with advice about how to make her books better. For example, the opening of "Princess Academy" could have used more background information on the uses of goat dung--or just take out the reference to goat dung altogether. The little girl was also a writer, so she knew Shannon wouldn't be offended--"Just authors helping authors."

She told the person who was supposed to introduce her to just forget the introduction in the interest of time. "But what should I say?" Kathleen asked. Shannon said, "Just tell them, Shannon Hale is the Mark Twain of our time. The only word to describe her is 'genius.'" So, maybe not getting that it was kind of a joke, Kathleen did. She went up there and said just that. Backstage, we were dying.

At one point, Shannon confessed to having a life-sized cutout of Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy in her bedroom. We asked how her husband feels about that. "Oh, he's so awesome!" she said, and pulled out a photo album to show us a picture of herself and her sister, in full Regency dress, kissing a life-sized cutout of Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy. Part of the release party for "Austenland." Perks I never realized were possible!
Well, she was a lovely, lovely person--witty and fun and delightful to talk to. Her remarks to the group were hilarious and inspiring. I'd call our little meeting the highlight of my year, but later this summer we're going to visit the Sacred Grove. It definitely rates in the top five, though.

We found out that we went to school together at the U--she was a couple of years behind me, and although she didn't say it right out, I think she probably remembers me and looked up to me quite a lot. I used to say a lot of really profound things in my English classes. Of course, I don't remember her. Who pays attention to underclassmen?

Give her a couple of days, but you will want to check out her blog to see what she writes about me. In the meantime, pick up a good book. You won't be disappointed.