Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Happy Chinese New Year and Thanks for Coming!







Phew! I made it!

It's the Chinese New Year, which means I had my Dumpling Days Book Launch! If you haven't noticed, my postings on this blog have been a bit spare lately. That is because every spare moment has been used to make over 100 Pocket Pacys:

the two large pocket pacys are the special "winning" ones;  the people who got them won an original piece of art at the book launch

These are the special edition Pocket Pacys I did just for the launch. They are all wearing pink dresses because in Dumpling Days, the three sisters are forced to wear matching pink dresses when they travel to Taiwan (to make it easier for their mother to keep her eye on them). This is based on a real-life experience:

We put one of each of these  Pocket Pacys in the booklaunch goodie bags, along with a red envelope that had a special URL to download exclusive deleted chapters and a dumpling recipe card. Because the Pocket Pacys were a bit time-consuming + having even less time then usual (work, visits + Rain Dragon!), I wasn't able to bake special cupcakes this time around. In fact, the baking had to be given up altogether and replaced with Japanese gummy candies.


And after assembling 100 bags (much thanks to my sister, niece & Sasquatch) I was a little worried to wake  up on book launch day to snow. The most snow we've had all winter! Would people come?




Yes, they did!


I talked a bit incoherently--I did not prepare my talk as well as I would've liked (those Pocket Pacys took a long time!) and I admit I am more self-conscious than usual with my baby bump:


But it was lovely to meet so many of you! I think most people liked the Pocket Pacys so making them was definitely worth it! I hope to see many Pocket Pacy travel photos in the future!




Thanks so much for coming! Happy Year of the Dragon to all!



PS--Congrats to all the ALA Media Award Winners! Glad to see some of my favorites made the list!

5 comments:

Meghan McCarthy said...

Oh my god Grace, you're crazy for making all of those pocket Pacys! Congrats on the successful launch.

Anna Alter said...

I know! You set the bar so high for book launches! I'm glad it went well, I wish we could have made it.

Naomi Canale said...

You look great with your bump! Yay, congrats on the wonderful launch.

Anonymous said...

I finished Dumpling Days last night and loved, loved, loved it. Thank you for sharing. I would like to visit Taiwan now to experience all that is talked about in the book and of course, eat dumplings! :)

Thank you.
Jennifer
Children's Librarian

Grace Lin said...

Thanks everyone!

Jennifer--so delighted you enjoyed the book!