As any writer knows, it is always a great honor and privilege to meet an inspiring author who has touched your heart or life in some way. For me, that author is Joanna Campbell Slan, and after many years of enjoying her work and conversing with her occasionally online, I had the opportunity to meet her this past Thursday night.
A couple of months ago, Joanna sent me a message on Facebook to see if I was planning on attending one of her book signings and sent me to a website where I could stalk find out where she was going to be. Sadly, I missed several of the earlier original dates because of prior commitments, but was able to finally make it to something the other night.
Joanna was teaching a scrapbooking workshop at our local library and if you live anywhere near St. Louis, Missouri – she will again be at the Kathryn Linnemann library branch in St. Charles this upcoming Thursday, December 11, 2008, to teach a repeat of the class. (you should go just to see the major changes they made to the library – it’s incredible!)
Yes, Joanna is just that awesome that the class filled fast and the library decided to add another class after the turnout. I am dying to take the class, but unfortunately I have other plans that night, and cannot possibly get out of them.
Meeting Joanna was exactly how I hoped it would be. She is genuine, sincere, sweet as can be and totally knowledgeable in scrapbooking. It was so much fun to look at her projects for the night and see the amazing things she did with a cereal box and how she made a junk mail catalog into a beautiful scrapbook. You all know how frugal I am, but to see that Joanna was too, was extremely awesome.
She introduced us to her husband who told us he was “Acting Security” and proceded to pat my kids down and make them laugh. Both Joanna and David, her husband were personable, funny and a pleasure to talk to. My time with Joanna was extremely short as she was preparing for her class, and as she reminded me on Facebook a day later – we forgot to take a photograph (what kind of scrapbookers are we?) but it was so well worth the wait to finally talk to her in person, I plan to do it again. She did take the time out to sign my book for me and put a sweet message in there. She also gave my children bookmarks promoting her new book, which you should really check out – it’s AWESOME!
Thank you Joanna, for the opportunity to get to know you even better. I look forward to more and appreciate how wonderful you were to my children. (She only got to meet two of my five because the other three were off getting books)