Meet-up with La Brown Girl

It was a first for me on Saturday as I met fellow blogger La Brown Girl in person. She was giving a presentation at the Southwest Book Festival at the El Paso Main Library (which is awesome, by the way). I was a little nervous since it was my first time meeting someone from the blogging realm in real life.

It took me awhile to find the right room. I finally found it but then I wasn't sure which person she was, as she doesn't have a picture posted on her blog. I sat for a few minutes and then a young woman in jeans and a Wonder Woman T-shirt said to me, "Are you Annette?" and I said yes. So this was the girl I've been corresponding with these past couple of years. I'll admit to having made up an idea of what I thought she looked like and she did not look like that at all. I was a little surprised at her jeans and T-shirt and short haircut, since I guess I have this idea of what elementary school teachers look like that involves denim jumpers and big earrings. But it goes to show how stupid stereotypes are.

We talked for awhile and then finally the presentation got under way. She read two of her essays that were published in a book, Windows Into My World: Latino Youth Write Their Lives. They were excellent pieces, both about her experiences growing up in a Hispanic family. For the second story I got a lump in my throat and almost cried. It was cool that some of the family members mentioned in the essays were there in audience--her mother, and her brother holding his daughter in his arms. It hit me that La Brown Girl is a Writer. A real Writer, not the sort of bloggy scribbling writer that I am. The girl can spin a story.

She signed a copy of the book for me ("To my blogging buddy") and we exchanged "real person" info, but then she said, "I know where to find you," which, of course, I know she does.