The Perfect Hoard. . . .

I was at a dinner this week for authors and editors at Brigham Young University. It was connected to their annual Writing for Young Readers conference, where I met my agent two years ago. (My lovely agent and I went together.) I was talking to some people, two of whom I knew (Dave Wolverton and his lovely wife Mary), and two I didn't although one of the latter looked terribly familiar. Finally someone said something about this familiar-looking person being a librarian, and I had it. "Did you work on the sixth floor of the library?" I asked. The sixth floor of the BYU library is Employees Only, and it's where all the cataloging and paperwork goes on. She said she did, and I told her that once, many moons ago, I had been a lowly cataloging minion, and that my desk had been jammed into a hallway near her office. She found this very amusing, because she had just been about to tell me (Jessica-the-up-and-coming-author, not Jessica-who-used-to-catalog-for-minimum-wage) that she was also a reviewer for VOYA. She had read and reviewed Dragon Slippers . . . and loved it! She had been nervous, reviewing a Utah author (what if it was terrible?!), but was thrilled to find that she loved it. It's always pleasing to hear the someone likes your book, and she REALLY liked it. Then she proceeded to tell me that my book had inspired a quilt! She was entering the Quilting Challenge at the state fair this summer. Apparently a few months in advance they give you a piece of fabric, printed with a pattern, and you have to come up with a pattern that reflects the theme of the fabric (ie-flowers, birds, etc.). This year's fabric was printed with little chocolate truffles, and she was at a loss what to do with it. Then she read Dragon Slippers. The quilt (it's really a 3x3 wall hanging) is going to be arranged in a pattern called Dragon Claw, and she's going to embroider little dragon heads at the corners. She's calling it The Perfect Hoard. Isn't that so cool? I love it! I'm demanding at least a picture, if I can't buy it from her when the fair is over. Did i ever mention that, along with being a dragon-o-phile, I'm also a chocoholic? It's not a quilt, it's a map of my personality!