Why do people drink?
I go to all kinds of social functions and I swear that no one who drinks has a better time than me, and yet I don’t touch the stuff.
I know I can’t tell for sure because I’m not them, but it sure seems that way.
Yesterday it was a business type of picnic. [...]

I keep thinking back to a conversation I had with my friend Uma Krishnaswami, while we were at the Asian Festival of Children’s Content.
It was such an amazing experience.
I guess coming from a place where I’m writing as a minority to a place where Asian children’s content is the majority, seeing how seriously everybody takes [...]

On Saturday I was down at the Lattitudes Festival in Kitchener, Waterloo. They invite me practically every year since they started and the crowd that comes to gather and hear stories is definitely getting bigger!
It was raining hard on Saturday.
When I got to the little island in the middle of Victoria park, I was quite [...]

Anything out of the ordinary leads to its own bit of nervousness and even anxiety.
Most of the time my presentations are down pat, almost scripted. I’ve designed them so that they carry their own story arc and involve a range of emotions, tragedy and humour, not necessarily in equal proportions, but each offsetting the other. [...]

Early last Friday morning I took a taxi to the train station to catch the train to Bologne.
What an adventure that was! Imagine trying to figure out a train billboard with platforms and schedules in another language.
I found the number of my train and then there was this perplexing phrase after it 1CL testa. It [...]

I can’t help thinking about that old Bugs Bunny cartoon where Yosemite Sam lured Bugs into swabbing his desks by offering him a world cruise. After the tables have been turned and Yosemite Sam is thoroughly defeated, Bugs is leaning back against a beach umbrella sighing, “Oh the places I’ve been and the things I’ve seen!”
Well, [...]

Tomorrow I’m off to Italy!
And I’m actually getting more excited than nervous!
Maybe I won’t trip on the way to the podium.
Maybe I won’t fall off the podium (like I did in Denmark!).
Maybe I’ll be able to remember which faces go with which names.
I certainly hope so.
I’m doing my Wanting Mor presentation in two different places. [...]

Everyone should watch a movie in a cramped airline seat, with a six or four inch monitor, however big it is, and with lousy ear plugs. That way, they can really tell if a movie is any good.
I always tend to watch movies after the hype has died down somewhat.
I wasn’t very curious about Avatar. [...]

Yikes!
That’s about as much Italian as I know! But I’m assured there’ll be a translator.
At least I’ve worked with one before. It was in Mexico, and his name was Pepe. The best thing about him was that not only did he translate simultaneously as I spoke, he was able to infuse emotion into it.
I hope [...]

What an experience!
I’m glad I didn’t know that I could have become a librarian when I was a kid, because if I’d become a librarian, I never would have bothered being a writer, I think.
I’d have been having too much fun just reading all those fantastic books!
It wasn’t the first library convention I’d been to, [...]