Wednesday started off with an Adult Author Breakfast featuring Mindy Kaling, Diane Keaton, Jeffrey Eugenides, and Charlaine Harris. We all received a flyer about Keaton's book, a chapter sampler from Kaling's, and a finished copy of Dead Reckoning. Mindy Kaling (Kelly from The Office) was freaking hilarious. From introducing herself as Padma from Top Chef to making fun of the audience's shoes, she had everyone laughing the entire time. On the other end of the spectrum, Diane Keaton had most of the room bleary-eyed (okay, me) with a reading from her upcoming memoir. Jeffrey Eugenides was also funny, and he spoke a lot about his inspiration for his new novel and the few bumps he incurred. Charlaine Harris was last, and instead of talking in detail about the latest installment in the Sookie Stackhouse series (because she could have been there all day recapping the first ten books) she talked a lot about her journey to publication and having the HBO series. She, too, was funny, and I loved her accent! It was nice hearing a fellow Southerner speak.
After that we made our way back to the autographing area. I guess I should explain this for those of you who have never been. This whole thing was a cause of great stress to me because I just did not understand how this was supposed to work. First of all, Javits is ridiculously huge. However, it is also ridiculously well organized, and even though I felt like a fish out of water on Tuesday, by Wednesday I could actually make my way around rather easily. There was a large autographing area with around 25 tables which featured authors pretty much back to back all day. There was also in-booth autographing where authors would sign in their publisher's booth. The autograph schedule was put out way in advance, so there was plenty of time to map out who I wanted to see. My only complaint (which isn't really a complaint) was that there were so many great people scheduled at the same time! Again, it's not an actual complaint because this was not due to poor scheduling. There were just THAT many authors there. Also, having Josh there was great because we could be in two lines at once. As for the lines, they were MASSIVE! Especially for the big name authors who naturally I wanted to see. However, these lines moved very quickly, and there was only one instance the whole week where I waited in line for over an hour for them to run out of books just a few people ahead of me. Another thing I just didn't get was where these books came from. I knew it was frowned upon to bring books to BEA, but I didn't understand where I was supposed to get these books for signings. THEY GIVE THEM TO YOU! There is literally a huge stack of books on the tables/in the booths and the author grabs one, signs it, and hands it to you. FOR FREE! They do ask for a donation of $1 for every book signed for the National Book Foundation (?) so be sure to bring cash for that.
Okay, back to the day. First up was Lauren Oliver signing finished copies of Delirium and ARCs of Liesl and Po. While I was in that line Josh ran over to the Penguin booth to grab me a ticket for Ally Condie. Then he got in line for Jennifer Castle's The Beginning of After while I went to Penguin for Crossed. Then I got in line super early for Maggie Stiefvater because I knew it would be a long one (I was right) and got The Scorpio Races signed. Then Josh went over to Maureen Johnson's booth for The Last Little Blue Envelope while I headed over to Harlequin Teen for Julie Kagawa's The Iron Queen and Hannah Harrington's Saving June. That was the line that took FOREVER and unfortunately they ran out of the other books before I got there :(After lunch Josh and I had tickets to the ABA Tea with Children's Authors. When we got there they told us we'd be seated at different tables which freaked us out because Josh was like my security blanket all week, and he doesn't read nearly as much as I do so he was only there because of me. For a minute we thought about skipping out, but I thought we should at least find out which authors we were seated with. When I saw I was at Maggie Stiefvater's table I knew I couldn't pass it up. Then I saw Josh was seated with R.L. Stine, who was probably the only author there he'd actually read! Needless to say, we both stayed and had a great time. Maggie talked about her inspiration for Shiver (She'd just read The Time Traveler's Wife and wanted to create a story with that same emotion but for teens.), her real name (I'll let you google that one ;)), and her upcoming novel The Scorpio Races.
We left Javits to drop our loot at the hotel before headed to NYPL Mulberry again for a Writing for Teens Today event that featured Ellen Hopkins, Lauren Kate, Ally Condy, Scott Westerfeld, Maureen Johnson, and James Dashner. It wasn't nearly as crowded as TAC, but it was just as hot and I ended up having a rematch with the copy card dispenser. FYI: Do not bump into one of those things! They will leave a nasty bruise. After getting a few books signed, we headed to 'wichcraft for some amazing sandwiches. Sure it was just a sandwich, but Tom Colicchio does it right.
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