First Conference: The Aftermath

I'm back. As expected, I survived despite my anxiety. The trip to New York was great, and I gladly accept the resulting exhaustion. Since I went primarily for a conference, and conferences are for learning, I'll share a few things I learned.

• If I'm going to take red-eye flights, I need to learn how to sleep sitting up.

• I still love NYC. Cabs accepting credit cards makes it even better.

• Meg Rosoff and Mo Willems are entertaining/fascinating enough to keep me wide awake no matter how little sleep I've had. And Shaun Tan is brilliant. (I must check out the work of all three.)

• We need to shrink geography or come up with more time-effective methods of travel so there aren't thousands of miles between me and the likes of Mindy McGinnis, MarcyKate Connolly, Charlee Vale, and Matt Sinclair.

• Speaking of ... Mindy after a few glasses of wine isn't very different from regular-Mindy. And MarcyKate needs a medic as part of her personal staff.

• Editors are people, too. People who dress better than I do, but people nonetheless.

• While I've gotten pretty good at forcing myself out of my introvert tendencies, I can only push them away for so long. (Mindy was very proud of me for managing the shindig Saturday night as well as I did. But I was definitely ready to head back to the room when we did.)

• Mindy's anecdotes on her blog are awesome as-is. But when she tells stories in real life, she reenacts. This is not to be missed.

• Cupcake love forever!

The bottom line is that I need to head back to NYC before too long. (And yes, I know my sister will insist on coming along that time.)