Monday, April 25, 2016

Book Tour Shenanigans & Failed Plans

About a month before the release of The Last Great Adventure of the PB&J Society, Brenda Drake introduced me to the song "Peanut Butter Jelly Time!" Before that, I had no clue it existed. Like zero.

Of course, once I knew about it, I had big plans to use it on launch day and get all kinds of crazy. I planned to video myself and my family dancing to it. Then I decided that we needed a choreographed dance. But between moving, the book tour, and life, none of that ever happened.

Then I travelled to Maryland as part of the Beyond the Pages Book Tour, and spent all kinds of time with authors Laura Shovan, Ava Jae, and Kathy MacMillan.



During that trip, we got up to some crazy shenanigans. We spoke at panels, we signed books, and we spent like 87 hours driving in Maryland traffic. In short, we had an amazing time! So when I told them of my plans for Peanut Butter Jelly Time, they jumped aboard the good ship PB&J without a second thought. After a late night of pizza and s'mores, we got out our sharpies, created Harry Potter dancing bananas in homage to THIS awesome Peanut Butter Jelly Time video, and went for it! We even tweeted this teaser picture:


Alas, when I got back from that tour, I upgraded my failing phone, left 2 days later for the next leg of the tour, and totally spaced posting the AWESOME video that we'd made.

Today I am going to rectify that oversight. And so, without further ado, I present the debut of the Beyond the Pages Book Tour Peanut Butter Jelly Time Video!


Have an awesome day, and good luck getting that song out of your head! It's pretty much permanently stuck in mine.

Monday, April 4, 2016

My Launch in Review

My head is still buzzing over all the excitement of the last few days. On Friday, my book headed out to the world! My twitter feed went wild, and I conducted a couple of polls on two very important topics:

Team Grape vs. Team Strawberry (Team Grape: 25% vs. Team Strawberry: 75%)
&
Chunky Peanut Butter vs. Creamy Peanut Butter (Chunky: 27% vs. Creamy: 73%)

I'm still in shock over the tragic defeat of Team Grape!

On Saturday I had a wonderful launch party at The King's English Bookshop, so today I wanted to share the excitement of the party with a few pictures:

I couldn't have open food, so we had PEANUT BUTTER  cups and JELLY beans.


My parents and sister surprised me with a beautiful framed picture of my cover. It was just perfect to display at the signing.


I brought my very first ever rejection from 21 years ago. (Isn't that amazing?!) As a teen I sent a story idea to Disney, and that envelope contains their polite refusal to even look at it.


I told some stories. I read a few passages from my book . . .


We drew winners for some Pirate Prize Packs and a PB&J Prize Pack.



And I couldn't resist throwing in a booby prize (or should I say Gooby prize?)!


And the whole thing concluded with the signing of lots and lots of books.



Thank you so much to everyone who came both in body and spirit! You've made me feel so special, and I'm grateful to have shared this amazing moment in my life with so many people I care about.

I wish you all a wonderful week, and much happiness!

Friday, April 1, 2016

Launch Day: The Last Great Adventure of the PB&J Society

It's official!!! The Last Great Adventure of the PB&J Society is out in the world!! Huzzah!!!

To celebrate, I wrangled my dad (a.k.a. the PB&J guru) into doing a vlog with me. Because everyone should know how to make a PB&J the RIGHT way. Enjoy!



And for anyone who happens to be in the Salt Lake City, UT area, you are all invited to my launch party! It will be tomorrow, April 2nd, at 4:00 pm at The King's English Bookshop (1511 S. 1500 E.).

Have a wonderful day! And don't forget to comment with your vote for Team Grape or Team Strawberry!! :)