Hanni and I are signing copies of Safe & Sound at the American Library (ALA) convention in Chicago this week. I swim at a lap pool in a Chicago hotel, and when I went to swim laps today I figured my eavesdropping along the way would tell me that the librarians had arrived. No talk in the lobby about which bobbie pins were best at holding hair back in buns, though. And nothing said in the elevator about which rubber stamp vendor to go to for stamping books at the check-out line. The people in the elevators didn’t all sound old and mousy –- a lot of them were young, and hey –- some of them were men!

From the conversations I heard, there could easily be a technology conference in town this week. Or a business convention. An academic conference. An arts convention. Because, if you think of it, libraries can be all of these things — a place to go for technology, a place of business, somewhere to find books, videos, music. And the professionals who work at these places? They’re as diverse as the libraries, all dedicated to providing information for others.

This is the second ALA convention Hanni and I are privileged enough to attend. Last year my sisters Marilee and Cheryl joined me at the ALA convention in Anaheim. Every day we went to author presentations, visited the exhibit hall, signed up for contests, picked up free pencils, post-it notes, books and catalogs. We made sure Safe & Sound was displayed front and center at any booth that carried this award-winning book. We knew librarians would love our book if they noticed it among the thousands of others featured at the convention! Cheryl couldn’t make it to the convention this year, but Marilee is coming in from Orlando — she’ll be with Hanni and me at our signings, making sure the lines flow quickly and I remember to include author visit descriptions and bookmarks with each book. We’ll be signing at three different locations Sunday, Monday and Tuesday:

• Sunday, July 12, 11 am to noon at the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) booth in McCormick Place.
• Monday, July 13, 5:30 to 7:30, ASPCA Henry Bergh Children’s Book Award Ceremony in the St. Gallen Room at the Swissotel on E. Wacker Drive in Chicago. This one is a cocktail reception, and it’s free and open to the public.
• Tuesday, July 14, 11 am to 1 pm, in booth #1626,the Illinois Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators booth, sandwiched right between Scholastic and Charlesbridge – they get lots of traffic, so it’s a great location!

For more details on these signings, check out the schedule on my Web site. Hope to see (okay, hear) you at the convention!

Okay, okay, she’s a woman. And yeah, yeah, yeah, she’s Hispanic. But the one thing about Supreme Court Justice Nominee Sonia Sotomayor that inspires me most? She has Type 1 diabetes.

Millions of Americans have diabetes. Only a small fraction of us have Type 1, though. That’s the one that is also known as juvenile diabetes. I was diagnosed with Type 1 at age seven. Judge Sotomayor was diagnosed with Type 1 when she was eight.

The other form of the disease, Type 2 diabetes, is way more common than Type 1. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 95 percent of the people in America who have diabetes have Type 2. Type 2 is usually diagnosed in people over 50, often linked to their poor eating habits and weight gain. Type 1, which comprises only 5 percent to 10 percent of diabetes cases, has nothing to do with the person’s behavior. In Type 1, the immune system destroys the cells in the pancreas that make insulin. This breakdown usually happens in childhood. Researchers have not yet been able to figure out why.

Insulin carries carbohydrates–from bread, pasta, fruit, beans, milk, so many other foods–through the bloodstream to other parts of the body. Sometimes when people gain too much weight, their insulin can’t keep up. Doctors often prescribe exercise to people with Type 2 — a number of people I know have been “cured” of Type 2 by exercising and losing weight.

Type 1 is a whole different story. Judge Sotomayor and I could run, jump, swim, skip rope, lift weights and do cartwheels from sun-up to sundown (okay, truth is, I could never do a cartwheel, even when I was a kid. But you get the picture) and we could shrink down to a size 3 dress, but we’d still need to inject insulin. That’s because, no matter how much we weigh, those of us with Type 1 produce no insulin. None. Nada.

And so, Sonia and I — along with the other 3 million people in the United States who have juvenile diabetes — take insulin every time we eat. We test our blood several times a day to make sure glucose levels are within range. We balance meals, snacks, exercise and medication to prevent diabetes complications, which can include kidney failure, amputations, and…blindness.

Fast-acting insulins, insulin pumps and home blood monitors were not available when Judge Sotomayor and I were little girls. We took shots, avoided sugar, and tested our urine at home from time to time to get a guess at what our sugar levels were. We were advised not to have children, warned of the likelihood of complications and told we probably wouldn’t live very long.

No surprise that throughout my childhood I saw my juvenile diabetes as a weakness. In early adulthood, though, I decided to fight back. I studied the disease, bought one of those new-fangled home glucose monitoring machines, and with my husband Mike’s help and support we started testing my blood regularly. I became more vigilant about exercise, walking everywhere and swimming every other day and closely monitoring how much that exercise brought my blood sugars down. I figured out how much my favorite foods brought my blood sugars up, too, and now I inject that new fast-acting insulin six, seven sometimes eight times a day to balance the meals and snacks I like to eat. A new blood monitor at home talks — it calls my numbers out loud, so Mike doesn’t have to be around every time I want to check my sugar levels. Controlling my blood sugar keeps my weight at a steady level and gives me good overall health. Best of all – it makes me feel good.

Judge Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court gives me even more reason to think that our juvenile diabetes is not a weakness after all. It’s a strength. Living well with the disease teaches us perseverance, self-control, discipline and resourcefulness. Coordinating meals with insulin injections forces us to think ahead and make good decisions.

I fully expect Sonia Sotomayor will be raked over the coals during the upcoming Senate confirmation hearings — she’ll be asked about everything from her background in the projects to her personality to her previous rulings and probably, even her diabetes. Whether or not she’s confirmed, I’m confident she’ll endure the scrutiny just fine. This woman has lived with Type 1 diabetes for 46 years. She’s one tough bird.

Do not deny yourself--read "Do Not Deny Me" or any of Jean's books.

1987. A hot, humid day in Champaign, Ill. Mike and I are perched on stools at the Esquire Lounge. My folded cane sits atop the bar, forming a rigid white line that separates my beer glass from Mike’s. The discussion? How can I get to the pool on my own to swim laps.

The stranger sitting next to me interrupts. Her name was Jean, she said, and she couldn’t help but eavesdrop. “Are you talking about getting to the pool on campus?” she asked. I nodded. Newly blind back then, I didn’t have a Seeing Eye dog yet. I could hardly make it to the mailbox down the street. How was I going to get to the bus stop on my own? Not to mention the locker room, then to the edge of the pool to swim?

“That’s easy!” Jean said. She was a swimmer. “I drive over to the campus pool every other day. I’ll just pick you up and take you with me.”

And that’s how I met Jean Thompson. During our drives to the pool, I found out she was a writer. She taught creative writing at University of Illinois. Jean was a natural-born teacher, really — she knew when to set me free, let me try taking the bus and handle the pool on my own.

I’ve been swimming on my own ever since. I’ve been Jean’s friend ever since, too. And what a generous friend she’s been to me. Jean was encouraging when I got to work on my own book, Long Time, No See and generously offered to critique my first draft. Smart gal that she is, Jean didn’t hand her critique over to me on sheets of paper. She sat down at home and recorded them onto a cassette. That way I could access the notes on my own. It was Jean who taught me how to use dialogue, and Jean is the one who explained what those three magical words “show, don’t tell” mean when it comes to writing.

In 1999, Jean’s short story collection Who Do You Love was a finalist for the National Book Award. Usually only novels get that sort of recognition – rarely do short story collections become finalists in the fiction category. Jean became an instant celebrity, especially in Champaign-Urbana. I was pitching Long Time, No See to publishers at the time, and Jean offered to drive me over to University of Illinois Press and walk me in. Everyone inside recognized Jean and congratulated her. They couldn’t help but notice me, attached at the award-winning elbow. University of Illinois Press accepted my manuscript. Long Time, No See was published in 2003. One of the blurbs on the back cover is written by Jean Thompson.

It’s been twenty-plus years since Jean and I met on those barstools. In that time:

• she’s had five more books published, which makes nine books in all.
• a number of her stories have been published in The New Yorker.
• One of her short stories was selected for Children Playing Before A Statue of Hercules, a collection of the “short stories David Sedaris loves most.” Other notable writers in David’s collection: Alice Munro, Tobias Wolff, Lorrie Moore, and Joyce Carol Oates.

Jean’s most recent short story collection — Do Not Deny Me — is getting rave reviews all over the place. The Chicago Tribune published a favorable review on May 23:

Move over, Alice Munro, this gifted writer now sits in my mind near the throne of the short-story queens and kings of old. [Thompson] is a master of dialogue, character, pacing and plot, and—anyone who loves the form will have to cheer about this…the dialogue—pitch perfect.

National Public Radio aired a glowing review by Alan Cheuse last Monday, and this week Jean’s in… People!

Jean still lives in Urbana, but she’s coming to Chicago on July 15 to participate in a reading series at Hop Leaf Bar. I plan to get there early and find a seat right at the bar. Because, of course, you never know what wonderful person might belly up right next to you!

Hanni is my co-pilot. (Photo by Kaitlyn Cashman)

A story in the San Francisco Weekly last week described Tita, a Chihuahua service dog who works with a man suffering from bipolar disorder. A happy, feel-good story, except for one thing.

Tita bites people.

“She’s vicious,” Esler says with a smile, cradling the dog, which licks his face with abandon.

Once the story hit the newsstands, I was contacted by the blog moderator at The Bark. She wanted to know if I’d be willing to write a guest post about the service dog who bites.

What? You call yourself a dog lover, and you’ve never heard of The Bark?! Here’s a description of the four-color glossy magazine from their web site:

Taking the magazine’s slogan to heart—Dog Is My Co-Pilot—Bark became the first magazine to tap into the exploding phenomena of dog culture and lifestyle, focusing on the growing bond between individuals and their pet companions. Over the past ten years, Bark has chronicled the America’s love affair with dogs, the evolving status of canine pets and their role in society, as well as the incredible rise in services and products. Bark has become the recognized expert on the social/cultural world of dogs in America, and what they mean to us.

Bark’s impeccable pedigree includes publishing many of today’s most acclaimed authors including Ann Patchett, Augusten Burroughs, Rick Bass, Amy Hempel, and Pulitzer Prize winning poet Mary Oliver.

Hmm. Must be a proofreading error there. Somehow they left award-winning Children’s book author Beth Finke off that list. Because, of course, I’ve published a few articles in The Bark, too. It’s always a thrill to be contacted by their staff — it gives me the opportunity to brag that I write for the same magazine Ann Patchett writes for! You can read my guest blog at The Bark’s site and link to other Bark stories there, too—if you like dogs, trust me, you’ll like The Bark.

Remember my post last April about the kids TV show Martha Speaks? WGBH in Boston had contacted my children’s book publisher back then to order copies of our book for a new program they were testing out in Boston and New York City. Hundreds of paperback copies of Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound were given to students in city schools, and our book was added to Martha’s list of recommended picture books about dogs.

Well, that pilot program in New York and Boston must have been a hit — WGBH just ordered 180 more copies of Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound For their sister station, WGBY. WGBY is public television for western New England, located in Springfield, Massachusetts. And this time, they ordered hardcover books!

If you’ve never seen Martha Speaks on TV, you can link here to watch videos to see what Martha’s show is like. I also found a good description of the show in the Club Kids Quarterly newsletter from the PBS station in Springfield, Illinois:

What happens when a dog accidentally eats alphabet soup? She learns to talk! Martha in Martha Speaks is outspoken, confident, smart and has an amazing vocabulary. She loves learning — and using — new words.

The goal of the series is to increase children’s oral vocabulary — the words they use when talking. It is also designed to encourage children to practice using new words on a daily basis.

Produced by the creators of Curious George and Arthur, Martha Speaks is based on the children’s book series by Susan Meddaugh. The series targets children ages 4 to 7.

People tell me Martha looks a little like Hanni –I can’t vouch for that, of course. You’ll have to check out the show on PBS to see for yourself!