David*Macinnis*Gill.com

Ever had the odd expe­ri­ence of *know­ing* you’ve made a post, but when you look back, it’s not there? That’s the case with my post last week chron­i­cling the sec­ond day of the Won­der­Twins Mini-Tour. Although I wrote the post, some­how my blog­ging client soft­ware didn’t fol­low my com­mand to post it. What good is soft­ware if it doesn’t fol­low your commands?

The orig­i­nal post is below.  But first, a cou­ple of words from out spon­sors: Soul Enchi­lada has been nom­i­nated for BBYA, Best Books for Young Adults, a honor pre­sented by ALA. Nom­i­na­tion is only the first step in a very delib­er­ate process, but it’s nice to be mentioned.

Also, David Lubar men­tions his recent pur­chase of Soul Enchi­lada and writer­ross beats me to a most excel­lent pun.

The Won­der Twins Tour Part B

Hol­land Boys & Girls Club

For some­one who once toyed with doing open-mic stand-up, the venue at the Hol­land Boys & Girls Club was per­fect. Espresso bar, pool and ping-pong tables, com­puter lab, and small gym, plus a stage, lights, a mic, and a stool. Who could ask for more. But wait! There is more. Add an uber ener­getic youth pro­grams direc­tor named JJ and a group full of smart, funny, engag­ing teens as an audi­ence. They hadn’t read the book, but I didn’t mind–I taught high school Eng­lish, so I;m used to lead­ing dis­cus­sion where no one has read the mate­r­ial.

A sign that I was in the right place.

Boys & Girls of Holland

JJ and friend

Asked EXCELLENT questions.

The whole crew. Thanks guys!

Bril­lianceAu­dio stu­dio tour:

The third day of the trip, I had the delight­ful expe­ri­ence of tour­ing the pro­duc­tion and engi­neer­ing stu­dios of Bril­liance Audio, the audio­book pub­lish­ers of Soul Enchi­lada. It’s a hum­bling expe­ri­ence lis­ten­ing to pro­fes­sional read­ers work their magic from inside a sound proof cubi­cle with noth­ing but a book, a read­ing light, and the sound of their voices. The geek in me loved watch­ing the engi­neers work through “punches” or mis­takes in the read­ings, and then clean up the record­ing for any page noises, missed words, hic­cups, sighs, or tummy rumblings.

Another sign that I’m in the right place.

This is where they record.

This is where they fix the record­ings (note happy engineers).

And this is how they dec­o­rate the con­fer­ence room (turn your head to the right).