I headed out to the Merrell Center in Katy for the Houston SCBWI conference on Saturday. Cynthia Leitich Smith opened the proceedings with one of her typically excellent presentations. What a treat! She is a real treasure – writers, if you ever have the opportunity to hear her speak, take it!
Nancy Feresten of National Geographic Children’s Books, had an especially interesting talk on eBooks vs. printed books. Her prediction is that, with the advent of low cost, full color/graphics eBook readers, most, if not all, paper books will be PODs. Not sure if that means that Barnes & Noble et al will become mall Kiosks with Espresso Book Machines and a strong online presence, or if they will just cease to exist. She said that publishers will definitely change from their how they look now, maybe even largely disappearing, but content providers (aka, writers) will always be needed.
The brand new Kendell library is open! We took a quick tour and it is amazing. The top two floors are library (adults on the second floor, kids on third) and the ground floor has a gymnasium, a classroom and a big meeting room. We went back with the kids when they got out of school. They got to do a craft project and they each checked out a book.  Coolness.