The MARI IN THE MARGINS launch party
And how to draw Mari's owl.
Hi friends,
Yesterday I had a little meet-and-greet style launch party to celebrate the release of Mari in the Margins. The event was held at The Bookworm, a local independent bookstore that is super supportive of local authors.
I brought some fun swag—stickers, bookmarks, and postcards—and had a giveaway of some original doodles from the book. I even brought Mari’s “actual” journal from the book! What does that mean? Well, as I was creating the art for Mari in the Margins, I thought it would be neat to create some of her art journal pages IN the pages of exactly the type of journal Mari uses in the story. She receives a handmade, coptic stitched journal as a gift at one point in the book, and that’s what she does her journaling in. You can see it on the table there, open to a page with an owl drawing.
I brought cupcakes with homemade cupcake toppers. Aren’t they fun?
I signed books, saw lots of familiar faces (and a few new ones), and showed a few kiddos how to draw Mari’s owl.
At one point, my two-year-old granddaughter decided to take over my chair and asked to color, so I gave her my pad of paper and a pencil and let her scribble happily. I’m not sure if there’s any usable paper left in that drawing pad!
It was such a fun event! I’m so grateful to The Bookworm for hosting and to all the people that showed up to celebrate this book with me. Some of them had already read the book and told me how much they loved it and couldn’t wait to share it with people.
The book is written for a middle grade audience, and I hope it makes it into as many young people’s hands as possible. But adults will (and do) enjoy it too. I often say that if you don’t read children’s books as an adult, you’re missing out on some of the best stories ever written! So I hope you will read it and share it with a young person in your life.
If you’d like to know more about the book, check out these previous posts:
Want to draw Mari’s owl? Here’s how!
Here’s a link to a printable PDF:
What a fun way to celebrate!
Aww I love this! Congrats once again! I'll have to try drawing Mari's owl sometime