Week in and week out, you crank out your paper. Show us the fruits of your labor by sending copies to the Convention. We suggest from 25 to 50 copies, but you may send as many you want. Schedule your shipment -- preferably one that can be tracked --  to arrive by Mon., June 2. Then remember to come down to the exhibit area on the Second Floor Bridge and see what other members are doing. Send them to:

31st Annual AAN Convention
SHOW MGNT PAPER DISPLAY
c/o Metropolitan Exposition Services, Inc.
c/o Atlantic City - Philadelphia Express
4235 Richmond Street
Philadelphia, PA 19134
tel: 215-743-5490

Just in case the seminars, parties and after-parties aren't enough to fill your days at the Convention, you may want to join one of the special morning experiences our sponsor GPTMC has created just for convention attendees. Each tour will have one official guide and an assistant. Friday, June 6, provides an opportunity to see some eclectic art with Mirrors, Mosaics and Magic: A Morning Inside South Street's Magic Garden, which includes a visit to Philadelphia's Magic Garden (shown above). Saturday morning offers a Rare, Private Tour of the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. Not only will you have a chance to explore America's icons -- the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall -- you'll also get to the rarely visited second floor of Congress Hall. All tours are limited to 25 participants and advance registration by May 30 is required. Please visit the Special Events page for descriptions and registration information.

Really, it's show and tell time--or share and steal time--for great ideas from AAN art directors and designers. That's YOU! Share your covers and pages with colleagues and talk about what works and what doesn't. You'll find an idea or two to call your own in the process! Start gathering those PDFs of covers and layouts that you've loved and hated and send them to jmacleod@citypaper.com by May 29. Those not attending the convention are also encouraged to submit files!

A new twist this year: The final day of the convention will feature sales training seminars for beginning- and intermediate-level sales staff that will be accessible under a separate, less-expensive registration schedule. The idea is to provide regional training for papers in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions who would have sent sales staff to AAN East, which was canceled this year. We've lined up two highly regarded professional speakers -- Rita Bailey and Dianne Ciotta -- to provide the training.  This special program is $125 for AAN members and $200 for non-members (until May 16) and the separate registration includes access to the Bailey and Ciotta sessions, as well as the convention parties on Friday and Saturday. Fully registered convention registrants will also be allowed to attend these special sales-training seminars.

This year's AAN Convention heads back to the East Coast -- Philadelphia, to be exact. The Declaration of IndependAANts, the association's 31st annual convention, will be hosted by the Philadelphia City Paper from June 5-7 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. As always, AAN has lined up a mix of special speakers, brass-tacks programming, and plenty of food, drink and revelry. The Philadelphia Marriott Downtown is the headquarters hotel. Seminars will be held at the nearby Pennsylvania Convention Center.