Last night I attended a presentation at our local library put on by two debut Young Adult authors (Gina Rosati and Hilary Weisman Graham) It was a great event filled with heart-to-heart advice by writers to writers (and some of the coolest bookmarks I’ve ever seen.) I’ll be reviewing Gina’s book: Auracle – on this blog as it gets closer to its release date. (hey, us chicks have to look out for each other.)
While I was at the library, one of the librarians: Ellen came up to me, “Wendy?” she said. “Wendy Thomas?”
Wondering if I had any overdue fines on library books, I hesitatingly acknowledged yes, that was who I was and waited.
Ellen then went on to tell me a story from a friend of hers who lives in Washington State. Apparently that friend while waiting for a pizza to be ready started reading the free weekly newsletter often found in local restaurants and coffee shops around the town (and I’ve since discovered are also distributed around the United States and in 50 countries.)
One of the “Everybody’s Talking About…” articles in the newsletter was about a chicken owned by Wendy Thomas from Merrimack New Hampshire who had created a piece of art that ended up benefiting a local playground.
Wait a minute.
“That’s your chicken, right?” she asked me.
Yup, that’s my chicken; Simon who painted “Feathered Fireworks,” a painting that ended up raising 300 dollars for a local playground restoration fund. Our little chicken is being featured in coffee shops around the country.
Can I just be the first to say “How cool is that?”
I talked with Ellen about the painting and how it helped the playground fund and I’m not sure exactly how it happened (maybe I was just so relieved that I didn’t have any outstanding dues) but I’ve very happily agreed to donate another picture by Simon to this year’s Library Turkey Shoot (no turkeys are harmed) fundraiser to be a raffle prize.
It’s not quite ready, Simon has to add a few finishing touches and then her autograph (I’ll put up a picture of it in tomorrow’s post) but it looks like our chicken from down-home-on-the-farm is going to do good once again.
And that just makes this mama hen so darn proud.
Simon's in the news again (click on image to enlarge)
