It has been a thrill and an experimental adventure publishing my first children's book. I am so thankful to my publisher and all who have encouraged and supported me in this journey.
The Creatively Imagined Explanation of Gabriel’s Blue Giraffe is an invitation to explore the maybe’s and perhapses of the limitless world of imagination. By nurturing, igniting, and fueling the adventure of discovery and plain old making stuff up, it is the ancient belief that we are created to create and expand our world into new worlds of thinking and inventing in partnership with our Divine Designer.
A friend posted this photo on their facebook timeline with the caption:
"Came upstairs to discover Gen Z at its finest!" -
In a world where everyone's head seems bent and bowed to digital gadgets, Nature Valley has done a poignant job of encouraging us to preserve some of our most cherished childhood cultre.
This short facebook clip documents elderly parents and their adult children discussing what their favorite childhood activity was growing up:
Please don't get me wrong, I do not have a problem with technology or kids using it. I am just encouraging that it has a place and that kids need help managing their use of it. Children also need help stimulating their creativity and imagination in a smör·gås·bord of ways.
Aside from just plain old fun, writing this book is my intentional effort to counter the loss and depletetion of children's imagination and recapture and mine the Gold in our #NextGen of Discoverors, Inventors, Writers, Filmmakers, Problem Solvers and Artrepreneurs.
As a true Alchemist and Artrepreneur, I am constantly multi purposing and multitasking. Even though it is no sacrifice to go out to Pasadena, and even though I have dubbed it the West Coast Manhattan Island, I cannot make the trek out to Pasadena without having a bunch of intentional errands to run to get the most of my expensed mileage write offs. My heroic secretary (aka my husband) and I decided to make heading out there for the event a date day by going together. We started off by delivering my consignment agreement and a stack of my books as well as some of my giraffe sundries to the renowned Vroman's Bookstore on Colorado Boulevard (Rose Parade route).
(Here is my Super Hero Secretary aka my husband. We celebrated #LivingLifeArtfully in Vroman's Cafe with an iced latte and chocolate tiramisu cake something delicious).
We checked out some commercial real estate properties as we hope to someday open a boutique-cafe near Pawnee *wink* aka Pasadena City Hall.
I needed some white glaze for a new pottery design I am concocting so we patronized Blicks.
Being famished, we discovered my new favorite Porter at Lucky Baldwin's who surprised us equally with it's juke box and it's English version of Canada's Poutine.
As if the day wasn't already perfect and exciting enough, we heading over to the impressive architectural stucture known as the Pasadena Central Library. I am so glad I spied out the place the week before, because it is a distracting beauty. Several movies have been filmed there. Think any ivy league college library scene you've ever seen in a feature film flick. It was such a privilege to be invited to participate in the 3rd Annual Author Fair at the Historic Pasadena Central Library.
Honestly, I was overwhelmed with gratitude towards all of the people that came out to support me and do a happy dance with me over the joy of getting my children's book published and show casing it's debut at the Pasadena Central Library. Feeling like the newbie on the block to all of this, it is an honor to run with a tribe of authors that have accomplished so much themselves. Please click on the photos below to see who is a published author in their own right and where you can visit for more details. And please check out their content either on their websites or on amazon. Diane Wigstone - Dr. Bill Peters -
My little corner in the library was next to these two amazing authors:
Ontresicia Averette has bravely written about the life of her cousin, Rodney G. King. Most people recently tout #wewillneverforget and can easily recount where they were when they found out about the tragic terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. However, meeting the beautiful Ontresicia at the author fair and realizing what her book was about, immediately brought me back in an instant, to exactly where I was as a newly wed living in Fuller Student Housing in Pasadena, when all of society, the media and LA responded to Rodney King's tragic and controversial situation.
When the Watt's Riots broke out, my new groom and I lived on the street near the crack house that the Bloods and the Crips gangs united at. We could hear everything the helicopter pilot was saying to them from our apartment. My wise groom suggested that we not let my mom know where he had move her daughter to while he finished his graduate work.
Please check out Ontresicia's book on amazon: Broken Spirits, A Letter to my Cousin, Rodney G. King
Stuart Douglass Byles teased all of his inquiries with his display of private vintage wine bottles and no taste testing was allowed. We chatted about the actual start of California's Wine industry occurring in LA despite hearsay of it being pioneered in Napa. He was exceptionally knowledgeable about my geek interest,... California's water wars with cyclic bouts of droughts and floods. Please check out his book on amazon Stuart Douglass Byles: Los Angeles Wine
I wrote Gabriel's Blue Giraffe in dedication to my friend Sheeba and they came out to support my book launch as well! Only the grown up 2 year old, Gabriel, was zonked out asleep in the stroller to the whole world of the living around him.
...But meeting his new baby sister for the first time MORE than made up for it...
"Maybe or Perhaps we could make stuff up and just use our imaginations today!" @kimiyaisms twitter handle