Awards Ceremony and a New Book Idea

Miami Book Festival

First, I attended the Miami Book Festival, and promptly located my book for sale with the rest of the award winners at the Readers Favorite booth. It was very nice to see someone else selling my book – for me!

It was also nice to know that the proceeds for all of the books sold went to help the Saint Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The Readers’ Favorite was able to donate over $2000 and I couldn’t be prouder of them.

Meet & Greet
Friday Night

 I then met quite a few brilliant authors at the festival and at the meet and greet that evening. I bought many children’s books, autographed of course, and cultivated some relationships. It was very nice.

The next day Sherri took me to the Vizcaya Museum and Gardens and boy, was I in for a real treat! I had no idea places like this still existed. (They probably do, I just don’t travel much.) It was like being transported back to olden times of royalty and renaissance era luxury. The house and museum were amazing and I was quite intrigued by the level of detail that went into every room and piece of furniture.

However, I had no idea what was in-store for me in the gardens. It was magical, massive and mesmerizing (to utilize a little childhood alliteration). It sits on 50 acres but the gardens consist of 10 acres of intricately manicured and cultivated garden broken up into many “rooms” or sections. There is an orchid area, a maze garden, dozens of fountains, sitting areas, isolated sections for introspection, a really neat ‘secret garden’ surrounding it is 40 acres of native forest and of course it overlooks the Atlantic Ocean within a lagoon. There were massive statues and intricate designs everywhere. It was more of a treat that the reason we traveled to Miami in the first place. I will forever be grateful for the opportunity to go.