Postcard For Reader

BookExpo America 2012

As you may have noticed from my Twitter feed, I've been at BookExpo America for the past two days! I left early yesterday to come home for my brother's concert (where he performed a piece he composed AND won an award!), but here's what happened!

Monday:
So I went to BookExpo America this year with my roommate and new middle-grade blogger chick Julia. (If you saw me but don't remember her very well, she's the one that has two feet of hair.) Here's a picture of her sitting in the giant chair at the Javits Center.

Julia is tiny and the chair is large.

You may have seen her around WORD a few times -- she talked about The Hunger Games movie and reviewed a few Riordan books. She's going to be a staple on here from now on.

I headed down to her house around noon and we spent the day talking and playing Mario. She forced me to watch the first two episodes of Downton Abbey on Netflix, which I now really want to finish.

Then we prepped our suitcases and went to bed.

Tuesday:
After an hour on a bus, we arrive at the Port Authority in NYC! We make our way over to the Javits Center, where we spend way too much time trying to find the press booth -- why do they have to move it every year? -- before making our way into the center.

I skipped most of the signings I had in my plan and spent the time wandering around booths with Julia. We swung by Scholastic, who -- as usual -- had quite the selection and were super-nice about showing it off. (This is the second year now where they've been one of the nicest booths to bloggers. You go, Scholastic!)

Snagged from Scholastic on Day One:

  • Skinny: a girl deals with a voice in her head who constantly tells her all the things that are wrong with her.
  • Amber House: a girl encounters ghosts as she searches for diamonds.
  • Endangered: a girl tries to save endangered apes.

Surprisingly, Disney-Hyperion was uber-nice this year too -- while they weren't as forward with books and such as last year, I think I just managed to catch them at a time where they weren't being bombarded by hordes of people. (Every other time I saw them they were swamped, and mainly by younger fangirly people. Poor dears.) I snagged a few books from them, as did Julia.

Snagged from Disney-Hyperion:

  • Artemis Fowl: The Last Guardian sampler: The first few chapters of the last book in the Artemis Fowl series.
  • The Darkest Minds: Alexandra Bracken's new novel about

I snagged some stuff over at various other booths, as did Julia, but I'll go over that later.

I had a lot of fun chasing down some of my favorite people -- who else did I see at the Harlequin booth but the lovely Miss Kagawa (whose last name I now know how to pronounce properly) waiting for her signing? I bounced over to say hello and who else showed up but the fabulous Suzanne Lazear?!

Julie Kagawa, author of the Iron Fey series, myself and Suzanne Lazear, author of Innocent Darkness.

Suzanne gave me a cupcake. I like Suzanne.

We stood around talking for about a half hour and then Julie had to go her signing and Suzanne had to go prepare for her meet 'n greet later so Julia and I resumed our walk around.

The story of Lemony Snicket:
Julia is a huge Lemony Snicket fan. His line to sign things was a million miles long, though, so she decided to skip it.

However, from the time he started signing until he finished -- an hour after he was supposed to, because he's a very nice human being -- we kept walking by and she would start to fangirl. We ended up back by the booth when he was done and he was standing around with a few of his people eating potato chips.

Julia was to nervous to say hi, so being the good friend I am, I dragged her over and introduced them.

He wins the award for one of the nicest people I've ever talked to at BEA. He was very sweet and offered us some of his chips and we just stood around talking for a few minutes about his signing and BEA and how much fun we were having.

Flash-forward an hour or so to when we're at the Bloomsbury booth. I'm chatting with my future boss about my internship and BEA and how everything is going and who shows up again but Snicket himself! (Which, as you know, is not his real name, but I shan't ruin the facade for people who don't want it ruined.)

He remembered us from the hour before and jokingly said he was "fangirling over us." We got to talk to him again for a few minutes before we all went our separate ways.

In conclusion: Lemony Snicket offered us potato chips and said he fangirled over us. Needless to say, our day was made.

I also had the chance to run into fabulous literary agent Barry Goldblatt. (Some people know him better as Libba Bray's husband, but as awesome as his wife is, he's just as hilarious.) Another fabulously nice guy, he didn't mind the fact that I flailed over him. We got to joke and talk for a few minutes.

I think I skipped all of the signings I had planned for Monday -- I went to Suzanne's meet 'n greet and hung around the Flux booth for a while. (This resulted in me going to the signing of fabulous British author Tom Pollock, author of City's Son. Great accent.) I also swung by the Apocalypsies' event for a little while -- SO MUCH FUN! -- and flailed over the finished cover of Gail Carriger's Etiquette and Espionage. But mostly I just wandered around and snagged some swag and had fun and talked to people I really genuinely like!

Left, me with Captain Underpants. Right, my pile of books from Monday.

Wednesday:
Julia and I woke up and headed over to the Javits on a bus with a bunch of SUPER AWESOME LIBRARIANS. (If you see your librarian this week, remind them that they're awesome, because they are.)

We headed straight over to the Throne of Glass signing because Cassandra Yorgey was waiting on line over there and I adore her. We stayed for the signing and talked to Cassandra. Julia nearly had John Green walk into her as he headed to the back of the autograph area and I still don't think she's recovered from the near-contact. We both got copies of Throne of Glass, because who doesn't love a good assassin!?

We floated around some more, snagging swag and a few books. I had to leave early for my brother's concert, so we couldn't stay long. However, I got to pick up a copy of Innocent Darkness at the Flux booth -- Suzanne was nice enough to have them put one aside for me -- and then we headed over and took a peek at Chris Colfer as he signed.

It was THEN that we met up with Donna from Bites, who -- if you don't know -- is one of my favorite bloggers and favorite overall people. She stuck with us for the rest of the day, which was awesome.

We headed over to the Penguin booth because Julia had something she wanted to pick up and who was there but Barry Goldblatt!? I flailed again and said hi and we ended up talking for a few minutes. Then Maureen Johnson showed up to say hi to Barry and we got to talk to HER for a few minutes before Julia had to snag her book and Maureen had to prep for her signing.

Most of BEA is just being in the right place at the right time, I think.

I also got to see my bookmarks out in the real world at the Flux booth and hang out with the (very muscular) boys at Ellora's booth with Donna and Cassandra and Julia. They're very nice people.

Then we hopped on for a signing of Crewel and, after that, headed home so I could see my brother be FABULOUS.

Left, books from Wednesday. Right, swag pile!

Did you guys go to BEA? Who did you see? What did you get? Did you have fun!?