Lowell Visit No. 1

The Concord Festival of Authors has graciously invited me to provide two days of middle school presentations in Lowell, Massachusetts, and a one-night event for the general public at Lowell's Pollard Memorial Library (Wednesday, November 2, 2005, 7 p.m.). Today I met with the sixth-graders of Rogers Middle School, a wonderful bunch of kids, many with origins in either Brazil or Cambodia. Six of them stayed after my presentations to host me for a pizza lunch, which was a blast. Some good questions: "If you couldn't be a writer, what would you be?" (Answer: hmmm...a middle school teacher maybe?), and "Was it hard to move around so much and always be the new kid?" (Answer: definitely, but it gave me an "eye for the outsider" since I know how that feels).