Greetings from Helena - site of the 2007 Montana Library Association conference

I just got out of the author lunch with Neil Gaiman which followed his morning talk on intellectual freedom. I have to say after all the hype I was a little worried about what kind of speaker he would be. You know the thing, famous author, writes well, not such a good speaker. Well, he was great. He told us a great story about being accused of selling out by posting his own short stories on his personal website and was called a "pixel stained techno peasant wretch." So funny, very intelligent, speaking from no notes, did an outstanding job. During the author lunch he spoke about himself as a reader turned writer. He described his attitude in regard to his life's goals at the age of 15 as "arrogance untempered by knowledge." They made a gift to him of the Book Babes calendar which, after a comment about a perfume developed based on a character in one of his books smelling like sexy librarians, was an appropriate choice. For all of those that weren't able to come, if you ever have the opportunity again, take it!!!!!
Among other good news he gave us was the news about his upcoming films. http://www.neilgaiman.com/works/films/ Be sure to stay tuned on those.
I'll be interested to see if his remarks in his blog about meeting and speaking to us will be as interesting as our blogs on him. http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/ ... and ... OMG he just walked past me on his way in to his afternoon talk. They're going to love it. I'm hearing uproarious laughter, he must be in and speaking.
Hope you're having a great day.

Greetings from Helena - site of the 2007 Montana Library Association conference

Things are beginning to wind down here. The exhibitors have packed up and moved their tables of goodies out. They've treated us all very well and were, as always, a welcome addition to the conference. We are looking forward to the membership dinner tonight and the presentations by Neil Gaiman tomorrow. There are still tickets available if you want to jump in your car tomorrow morning for a day in Helena with a public lecture and book signing at 2:30 p.m. at the Red Lion by Mr. Sandman himself. This will most likely be a once in a lifetime opportunity and you can be sure is worth the $20 ticket.
I went to numerous sessions today, all excellent. Tomorrow morning I'll be going to a session on graphic novels (fat comic books) that will be led by the YA librarian from Miles City who came to the Cates Scholarship party last night dressed as Death from Sandman. Silly me, I thought she was just Goth. She is really a scream and I'm looking forward to her talk.
It's all be fun, educational, exhausting, and great. Looking forward to coming home and sleeping in my own bed.