I can’t believe I haven’t written since Feb. 22nd. I’m sorry.
On the 24th I flew to California to spend a couple of days at Scripps College in Claremont. I was hosted by Juliana Lacerda Sobral and her dog, Veggie, who somehow managed to find her way (Veggie, that is) into my bed in the middle of the night on the 25th. She clearly wanted to play!
Scripps is a 900 student girls’ college that is part of a seven-school group all located within a mile of each other. They share both classes and facilities. The invitation came about when Maya Higgins (an RA and a senior) read the nomad book and decided she wanted to meet me. I’m sure it wasn’t easy, but somehow she managed to get together the funding for my trip.
I had meals with Scripps students, visited Sycamore elementary school where I talked to second and third graders, and addressed a crowd of around 150. My talk was about my life, my new book, and of course, Let’s Get Global. I flew in on Wednesday and back on Friday and I’m still a little bit jet-lagged. Or maybe it’s just the cold I seemed to have picked up along the way. Anyway, I loved the school and the reception.
I came home to a box of books…the uncorrected bound proofs of my anthology, Female Nomad and Friends. The publisher puts these together to send to media that have a long lead time and to high profile people who might want to write a blurb for the cover. (If you have any personal connections to well-known celebrities, do let me know!!)
I just spent two days writing a letter to someone I’m hoping will want to join us in a partner deal. I’m not saying who, but the letter will go out with books on Friday. If the deal happens, I’ll let you know. As you know…all royalties will go to slum kids in New Delhi for scholarships to vocational schools.
I now have www.letsgetglobal.org up and running. It’s not there yet, but it is a beginning. Now I’m ready to go after some funding. I desperately need a paid coordinator and a social network person; my experience with volunteers is that if they’re not officially employed and paid, they somehow disappear. Can’t blame them; life gets in the way if it’s not a real job.
Enough. I’ll be back. I’m now in the business of collecting names of like-minded family foundations for funding requests. Know any?
