On Saturday, my dad and I were at the craft fair at Hollandfest in Cedar Grove, Wisconsin. It’s a great time, especially for Dutch people like us! We ate olliebollen (yes, I broke my GF diet and it was worth it!) and Doug had worstebroodje (Dutch pigs in a blanket). Doug made these wonderful posters from my book covers. I think that helped to attract people. Many stopped just to admire the covers.

 

The most fun is the people who stop by the booth. And this year, we had two very, very interesting people. The first was a man from the Netherlands. My dad and I saw him coming and before he even spoke, we knew he was Dutch. There is just that look that Dutch people have. Anyway, this man still lives there. When he was small, he lived in Amsterdam, on the same street as Anne Frank. In fact, he went to school with her. He didn’t really know her because she was a few years older than him, but how amazing was that! He bought a copy of Snow on the Tulips.

A woman then came up and began looking at the books. We started talking to her, and she told us that her parents were in Slovakia during the war. This interested me because, as I’m doing research for my next series, I’m finding that Slovakians (and my mother’s family is Slovakian) really suffered. Hitler didn’t like them and persecuted them. I got very excited thinking that I might be able to interview them for my book. The woman told us how her father never spoke about his experiences during the war. He passed away a while ago. I was sorry to hear that but thought I could speak to the mother. She passed away this spring. That really saddened me. The stories these people had died with them and the world will never know of their experiences. We will never have the opportunity to learn from them.

All in all, a pretty interesting day. That’s what’s fun about getting from behind the computer and meeting my readers.

Who are some of the most interesting people you’ve met?