Question of the Week: What's on your desk?

ALVINA: My days have been spent reviewing 1st-pass pages for my Spring 2009 books, and editing manuscript for my Fall 2009 novels, plus reading for other editors at various stages of their editing process, and trying to keep a few projects in development moving. Here's a sneak peak at the pages for GEEKTASTIC: Stories from the Nerd Herd edited by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci (I'm almost done, am on the last story, "It's Just a Jump to the Left" by Libba Bray), my handy dandy Sony Reader, and very preliminary stages from what I hope will be Ed Young's follow-up to Wabi Sabi. We'll see! Oh, plus piles of paper.

ANNA: Here is the spread I'm working on for the What Can You Do with an Old Red Shoe? sequel... slightly nibbled on by my kittens. Have you ever had a cat who liked to eat paper? Crazy kitties.

GRACE: This is my desk in my hotel room in Frisco, TX where I have just finished week one of my three week school visit trip. It has on it: the flyer for Frisco Reads (the program that brought me--and Lisa Yee on Monday!--in to present), a really sweet letter a student gave to me telling me how much she loved YEAR OF THE DOG and how she's waiting for YEAR OF THE TIGER (oops, it's going to be a long wait-sorry!), my computer (lovely MacBook which I splurged on impulsively when my dell exploded for the 4th time a couple days before I left and the dell people said it would be at their center for at least the next 15 days--I can't go on a school visit trip without a computer! I'll go bonkers!), and a bottle of pinot noir and a box of Little Debbie Nutty Bars (which will be explained later).

Edited to Add: (Sorry I'm so late!)

Elaine: Everything but the kitchen sink!!! I have books and brochures and post-it notes and fliers and a writing journal and a list of things to do--which I can't find at the moment. It's one of those ultra-busy times for me. I'm working on a bibliography of poetry books to use across the curriculum in science, social studies, and writing, for a teacher workshop on October 22nd; making all the arrangements for our reading council dinner on November 5th (Matt Tavares, Wade Zahares, and Daniel J. Mahoney will be the three children's authors and illustrators who will be members of our panel discussion that night.); doing my best to keep up-to-date with the poetry books being nominated for a 2008 Cybils Award (I'm on the poetry-nominating panel again this year.); working on a Wild Rose Reader post for Nonfiction Monday; planning for my trips to New Hampshire for the Children's Literature Festival at Keene State College and the Rabbit Hill Festival of Literature in Westport, Connecticut. (Grace is going to be one of the featured children's authors at the Rabbit Hill Festival.); and trying to put the finishing touches on a manuscript of children's poems that I began writing several months ago.