In my last post I was highlighting a beautiful wedding in Ohio. The next day was incredibly awesome as well. That was the day Chris and I got together with one of my favorite children’s books authors and her husband. Okay, I might be a little prejudiced. She has been my writing partner and friend for over 15 years, but seriously, her writing is amazing. It was such a treat to spend time with her. This visit was the second time I had met her in person, the first time I met her husband, Ken, and it was the first time she met Chris.

Since they were only about a half hour from our hotel, we decided to meet at a restaurant for lunch and then figure out the day. Lunch went way too fast, and we were really enjoying talking with each other so we relocated to their house. It is a lovely dwelling that feels open and cozy at the same time. I would love writing in that environment.

To my delight, Linda has a passion for cats. She often fosters pregnant feral cats as a hobby. I had fallen in love with her last batch of kittens from her posts on Facebook and was hoping to get a chance to meet them. Unfortunately, I just missed them, and they had moved on to find forever homes by the time I got there. However, she did have four other cats of her own. We sat and talked with each other all afternoon, and the cats casually strolled in and out amongst us, stopping for occasional pets — as cats do.  

Linda has written several books and lots of articles, but I have a favorite. It’s called Night Creepers, and I just love science in it. So much so that I asked to purchase a copy for my granddaughter, who is due in early August. Not only did Linda agree to let me have a copy, but she gave it as a gift, signed it, and also gave me some of the other books she and another writing partner of ours (Jen Funk Weber) had written. Is that an amazing friend or what?

Perhaps you remember Jen. I wrote about time with her on Marco Island a few years ago.

Back then I had written:

Once upon a time, about 13 years ago, I was an aspiring children’s book writer. On my journey through the world of writing and publishing, I discovered some of the best friends a person could have. It all began on a forum.

The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators: SCBWI forum to be exact.

In the huge, international world of writers, by some random quirk of fate, six of us found each other, and we’ve been close friends and critique partners ever since. Linda Stanek lives in Ohio, Jen Funk Weber lives in Alaska, Linda Covella (we call her Elsie to differentiate her from the other Linda) lives in California, Dale Ibitz lives in Connecticut, Mary Beth Schewitz jumps between Chicago and Florida, and I jump between northern and western NY.

A group does make one stronger. In writing and real life. …

It is such a blessing to me to see how our group has stuck together over the years. It’s true that now we only communicate a few times a year, but we are there for each other always. Case in point – the visit to Linda and Ken’s lovely home.

The afternoon mimicked lunch — it flew by. Ken is super interesting. He was a crew chief for the Goodyear Blimp and had lots of interesting stories to tell. Who knew that when I was a kid watching the blimp on TV as it hovered over Super Bowls and Olympics, a future friend was on board? Life is funny that way.

I remember hearing about Linda meeting Ken — she was writing an article about blimps. It was really fun to see the article she wrote for Highlights for Children framed on the wall in her office. (Fun fact: That magazine once paid me for one of my articles, but it’s been over 10 years, and as far as I know, still hasn’t been printed. If you see an article on Edvard Grieg written by Christine Pollock, let me know 😉 ).

We chatted the day away – talked about life in general, travels, dreams, writing, art, school talks, public speaking in general — all sorts of stuff. They shared a curio cabinet with us, and I really loved how they collected soil from different places that were special to them. It added a lot as we heard stories about the places. Ken also shared stories and interesting details about the model planes he built.

When we got hungry we headed out for a yummy meal at a nearby Mexican restaurant then still couldn’t finish the day off. Back to their house for more talking. Finally we hit a point where we had to reluctantly say goodbye and get back to the hotel since we had to head home to NY the next day.

That day was a day I will treasure for long time, and I hope we all get to visit together again sometime soon.

** Bonus note – our writing buddy, Linda Covella (the only one in our group I haven’t met in person) recently got an recognized for some of her work: