an education, and the winner

Nice, right? I have spent this week immersed in all things book writing and bookmaking. I have been preparing a workbook for my roundtable at the Alt Design Summit with the help of my absolutely saintly friend Anna of Dutch Door Press. I banged out a set of business cards through MOO.com after talking with this extremely wise lady a few weeks ago about who I am, and about not pigeonholing myself with donuts and piñatas and the like, not yet. AND, speaking of donuts, I JUST sent off my demo donut pan book to blurb.com. I had a trial by fire day today learning to use the bookmaking software and at the same time learning some hard lessons about photography and photo quality, but the fact that I didn't turn to a man and ask him to do it for me is a big deal for me in the computing department. I have been super unhinged all week with the nerves of the unknown of the conference coming up, but as I start to grind through these tasks I can feel mental stability returning (she types at three a.m.).

I made this demo book because there will be Chronicle Books and Random House folks at the conference (I think they are scheduled to be collecting book ideas during the very hour I am hosting my roundtable), and I thought donut shaped everything would be easier to talk about with a visual. It's a far cry from what I could do with an editor, but it's a start. Here's my favorite part, from the back jacket flap:

It's awesome.

And, now to the winner of the third donut pan giveaway! Chosen at random with an online random number generator, the winner is:

commenter #8:

SONYA!!!

I happen to know Sonya (I happen to "know" most of the commenters here, really). Not in person, but we've become friends over the last few years online. She is into real, good food and has a great blog called eatartword where she takes the time to taste, inspect and ponder just little bits of food at a time, like an egg. Or a turnip. It's a peaceful read. Congratulations, Sonya!

Email me your mailing address and I'll let Wilton know to send you the pans, and I'll be mailing you a little gift, too! :)

Have a great weekend, everyone! xoxo