National Poetry Month, and other things

In case you were unaware: April is National Poetry Month! Gregory K. over at GottaBook is celebrating children's poetry with the first annual 30 poets/30 days event. Take a look today to see poems by my awesome writer friend Charles Ghigna (a.k.a. Father Goose)!

Also being celebrated today: author Kate Messner has declared it to be Say Something Nice Day. I think this is a lovely idea, and will happily participate. Here are just a few people I'm appreciating right now:

• The administrators and parent volunteers at the Manhattan New School who kicked off a series of author visits yesterday so that every class in the school will get a chance to meet an author, ask questions, get signed books, etc. I had a great time visiting the first graders, who were excellent story-listeners and asked really good questions during our talk!
  
• My agent and editor, who are both awesome beyond measure in every possible way and who do a wonderful good-cop/bad-cop routine and apply just the right amount of pressure regarding certain manuscripts and proposals THAT THEY WILL HAVE VERY VERY SOON I PROMISE!!!! (Thank you for not going ahead with the bad-cop/bad-cop approach...yet.)
  
• The nice woman who works at my local laundromat who always has a smile for the customers and who makes the often-annoying task of doing laundry very much more pleasant. Little things like being friendly really make a big difference. I wish more people would remember that.
  
• My friend Steph, whose birthday it is today, and who has been a wonderful and supportive and all-around fabulous friend since we first met freshman year of high school. Happy birthday, Steph!
  
• A certain other person, whom I appreciate more than he probably knows, for lots and lots of reasons.

OK - Back to work with me.