[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":11},["ShallowReactive",2],{"blog-post-death-by-chocolate":3},{"_type":4,"body":5,"bodyHtml":6,"excerpt":5,"featuredImage":5,"publishedAt":7,"slug":8,"tags":9,"title":10},"blogPost",null,"I didn't have to go looking for chocolates today; they arrived early in the morning with American house guest named Yoko.\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/chocs2-02b82798bc.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nI woke up to an e-mail saying there was a picture book conference today at Goldsmiths college, featuring illustrator \u003Cb>Elizabeth Harbour\u003C/b>, who got me started on the whole thing with her illustration evening classes at Central Saint Martins eight years ago. Her class was so good that I took it four times in a row. She was nice enough to change it a little bit each time so I wouldn't feel like I was repeating things too much. I hadn't seen  her for at least six years, so I dashed off there and had a quick little reunion, which was great, although I would have liked to have kidnapped her for a whole afternoon of chatting. She signed a copy of her latest book for me, \u003Ca href=\"http://www.ucreative.ac.uk/index.cfm?articleid=18118\">Puppy Love\u003C/a>. \u003Cb>Ben Cort\u003C/b> also signed a copy of his \u003Ca href=\"http://www.simonsays.com/content/book.cfm?tab=65&pid=581451\">Aliens Love Underpants\u003C/a>. Then I ran off to have lunch on the South Bank with \u003Ca href=\"http://notesfromtheslushpile.co.uk\">Candy Gourlay\u003C/a> and \u003Ca href=\"http://www.bridgetstrevens.com\">Bridget Strevens\u003C/a>. And at last I got to meet \u003Ca  href=\"http://www.piedenero.com/\">Manuela Pentagelo\u003C/a> (\u003Ca href=\"http://manuelap.livejournal.com/\" class=\"lj-user\">manuelap\u003C/a>)! I felt like I'd known her for ages because we've done so many illustration challenges together (such as \u003Ca href=\"http://community.livejournal.com/scbwi/tag/lunch+with+hubert\">Lunch with Hubert\u003C/a>) and general plotting, but we'd never actually met. So that was very exciting. Bridget had to run off, but here's a picture of Manuela, Candy and me in the Royal Festival Hall. (It's kind of blurry, that's why I made it so small.) \\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/scwbi_friends-096adc324e.jpg\">","2008-02-15T23:06:00.000Z","death-by-chocolate",[],"death by chocolate",1776628722381]