Festival Featured Author Sean Connolly Shares his Excitement for the Festival!

By Sean Connolly
Festival Featured Author

What a difference a digit makes! There I was preoccupied with making my own eggnog, checking page proofs, and It's a Wonderful Life on television. Then along comes January 1, and with it that odometer switch from "1" to "2" at the end. Suddenly 2012 is this year.

And this year means a trip to DC in late April for the USA Science and Engineering Festival. A festival appearance gets us authors out of our garrets, blinking as we meet the real people out there. And it's those real people--particularly the young ones--who make it all so much fun.

I can draw them into my world of bad puns ("science friction," "give peas a chance") but also into the wider world of science. And on "Pi Day" (March 14) this year, Workman will publish The Book of Perfectly Perilous Math: 24 Death-Defying Challenges for Young Mathematicians.

Writing it has given me the chance to replace those old "two trains leave Chicago" word problems with challenges that have real bite. Speaking of which, if one vampire drinks the blood of two humans at each Full Moon, turning them into vampires, how long will it take for Washington to be populated by vampires (and don't say it is already)?