Skype Author Visit

It’s been an eventful week already!  We have a pretty large grant due on Friday, we had our first middle school program of the school year on Monday night, I spent yesterday and this morning at Penn State for a committee meeting, (quickly) drove back to the library for a Skype visit with author Chris Grabenstein and have Enchanted Library practice tonight.
So, this was our very first Skype author visit.  It was pretty much the beginning of a nightmare, but in the end it worked out beautifully!  Skype was down on the eastern seaboard much of Sunday and much of Monday.  Thankfully after taking a look at Twitter, I stopped accusing our IT department of sabotage and realized the problem was much bigger than just us.  Then, our wi-fi connection also has not been working recently, throwing a huge wrench in my plans and moving our entire program to a different space.  But after figuring out Internet access and having Skype come back live, I just crossed my fingers and waited.  And thankfully, everything worked out fairly well!  We only ended up with seven kids, but boy were they excited to talk to Chris Grabenstein.  And he was such a nice guy, spending time answering at least a dozen questions and really talking to each one of the kids.  As for the kids, we gave them a few basic questions to ask, but many had their own questions and were so excited to talk one-on-one with Chris.  They were so polite!  And for about a 30-minute Q & A session, it went really well.  We asked him about his inspiration, what his day looks like, info about his new book coming out in January and a host of other questions.  And the best part is that Chris did this for FREE!  The kids had such a great time and I really hope they get to remember what a great experience this was for them!  And now I’m off to look for other authors who offer Skype visits, because it was such a hit!  I would strongly suggest it as a programming option for you too.