Betty Birney’s Blog

Last night, Amy Goldman Koss (The Girls) hosted an awesome farewell party for Kerry Madden (Harper Lee) who is leaving L.A. to teach at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. It’s a wonderful opportunity for Kerry, who is a born teacher as well as writer, and a great boon for Birmingham,  but we’ll definitely miss her smiling face at our LAYA events. (She’ll come back to L.A. as her family is temporarily divided.)

Kerry and me at Mrs. Nelson's

Lisa Yee and Kerry Madden at Kerry's signing at Skylight Books earlier this year.

I took my camera and then proceeded to have such a good time, I didn’t take any pictures of the folks my husband Frank and I hung out with: Kerry’s husband, Kiffen,  Lisa Yee (Absolutely Maybe) and her husband Scott, Michael Reisman (Simon Bloom, Gravity Keeper), computer guy Scott Bly (YA book coming out soon), Sally Nemeth (The Heights, The Depths and Everything in Between), or fellow “starter LAYA”  and future bride, Eileen Rosenbloom (Stuck Down).

Above is a picture of Kerry and me at a signing about 4 or 5 years ago. Goodness, we both look so much better now! Funny how that happens. We’ve signed together a couple of times and in fact , we met at a disastrous event (in terms of turnout) where we got to spend the entire day talking (due to lack of turnout), and had a fun time kibitzing away the day with Alan Zweibel of Saturday Night Live fame and many, many other stellar accomplishments. (Maybe he’ll become a senator one day.)

LAYA stands for Los Angeles Young Adult writers and Kerry and I were at the first informal meeting, hosted by our guiding light, Cecil Castellucci, who also attended Amy’s party last night. (But of course, I didn’t take pictures.)

There was the obligatory tour of Amy’s amazing bomb shelter – a book in itself. Amy hates it, but liked the house so much she and Mitch bought it in spite of the shelter.

So, bye-bye Kerry and don’t forget to write (more books)!!!
Weather alert: it’s HOT in L.A. – even in the shade of our patio.