Meeting Authors (4)

So, this past week was FANTASTIC in terms of meeting authors.

Last Tuesday, I headed off to Barnes and Noble to see Holly Black (White Cat) and Sarah Rees Brennan (The Demon's Lexicon). Little did we know that there was a secret room, right behind where they were signing... I had to take a picture...





So, Sarah and Holly were HILARIOUS. I've met Holly before, but Sarah really just blew me away with her hilarity. The pictures below are them showing us an old con called Dog in a Bar - only their using an Octopus, that's right.. It was a classic con and since Holly's book is about a con artist, it fit perfectly.

My husband Chris was in charge of the camera and he got some great shots. Holly thought I looked familiar and was glad when I told her we'd met before and she wasn't really going crazy.

They both brought a bunch of cool swag and I snagged the White Cat gloves by asking the first question of the night - go me!

The three of us together - Sarah Rees Brennan, me, and Holly Black.

Funny enough, the next night, I saw Tony DiTerlizzi, who cowrote the Spiderwick Chronicles with Holly. He was doing a prepub with Andersons for his latest book called The Search For Wondla. We were really late so I missed the table chat with him, but he had a fantastic slideshow with some other drawings in the book.

And... his book is going to have three pages that you can interact with on the computer (if you have a webcam). It's called Augmented reality and it's really really cool. Basically you hold up the image to your computer when you get to his website and you can interact with a virtual map of the world the book is set in and follow along with where the characters have been thus far. Really, really cool!

So, it was fantastic to finally meet Tony - absolutely love his artwork and books.

Then, on Friday (I shared some of this story on my IMM vlog), I got an email from my Penguin contact Sheila - who I met at Robin Benway's signing. She had some last minute cancellations for a dinner in Chicago with Andrea Cremer (author of Nightshade) and a bunch of booksellers, so she invited me to come along. So, knowing it was a nice joint, I ran home, showered, pulled on something nice and headed out to Chicago.

Okay, first of all - the food blew me away - Lobster Ravioli??? YUM! We had a private room and I got to talk to Sheila a lot and Becky from Andersons for the first part of the dinner. Then, Andrea switched sides and I got to chat her up about her book and what she's currently working on. It was fantastic - I couldn't believe how great it was. I was sad Erica from The Book Cellar couldn't make it, but she was working. Sara from The Hiding Spot was also invited, but she lives too far to have made it that last minute. I was nervous going by myself, but it was so much fun.

I hope Andrea comes back to Chicago soon! :)

Andrea Cremer and me :-D

Coming up this week: None.. which makes sense with BEA - all the authors tend to be there, along with booksellers. Next week I will post about authors I would LOVE to meet next. :-D