At the end of last month, I slipped on a comfy pair of shoes, hopped on mass transit, and made my way into New York City to attend BEA, a North American publishing industry conference.
This is so not like the Medical Device Manufacturers conference or the North American Spine Society meeting or the Association of American Orthopaedic Surgeons meeting and definitely not like the Cervical Spine Research Society meeting. The first three may have a massive number of booths that fill a venue like the Javitz, but they're mostly packed with *everyone* in suits.
Plus, no one lines up in massive lines for anything at any of the other conferences :) And none of them have practically shirtless guys hanging around a certain publisher's booth. (
I felt uncomfortable passing that publisher!)
Of course, the other conferences don't have BOOOOOOKS or the awesome people who make and market them. Or my publisher or my amazing editors or my wonderful agent.
The other conferences may have me, but without the rest that BEA does, I'm just a bright drop in the bucket of black and grey suits.
This post is going to be *insanely* image-heavy. So, for the sake of computing power, sticking everything under a cut.
Thursday
A half-day trip into NYC after working the morning at the day job:
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| Taking the ferry in from Weehawken because it was so pretty. Hello, NYC! |
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My hair was just lovely after that boat ride.
And don't you just LOVE my sunglasses? |
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I almost cried when I saw this. I didn't expect the author part.
(picture modified to take out most of my non-pen-nickname, which is a mismosh of my non-pen first name and Isabel, my middle name) |
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| SHC dinner at S'MAC, a yummy mac n' cheese restaurant. I had buffalo mac n' cheese. I almost cried again from the yumminess. |
Also, I sat in line with some wonderful bloggers while waiting to meet Josephine Angelini. I loved meeting, chatting with, and continuously bumping into Nicole (
Feed Your Fiction Addiction,) Jamie (
Fangirlish,) and Emily London (
Oktopus Ink.)
Friday
A full-day trip into NYC via the bus because only crazy/brave people try to get near the Lincoln tunnel/ferries in the morning:
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| Danielle and Alex! |
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| I met Erika Cameron (Sing Sweet Nightingale) on Thursday night and didn't want to say bye on Friday! |
And THEN!!!!!
!!!!
I met my editors!!!!!!!!! (well, I met them Thursday, but I totally accosted them for photos on Friday. Because selfies)
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| ASJA PARRISH!!!!!! I want to squish hug her so badly! |
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PATRICIA RILEY!!!! (and me and) ASJA!!!!
Please note that under that grin, I'm flailing and trying to be so cool. |
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There were people interviewing authors at BEA, and Asja asked them if they wanted to interview me.
I may have babbled incoherently.
But this pic shows off my "you can't miss me if you try" outfit. See the red Keds? |
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| I tracked down my friend Blair Thornburgh at the Quirk booth and had a total selfie fail... |
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| ...which we fixed with the next picture |
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| While on line, I saw someone with gorgeous blue-streaked hair and, yes, it was Summer Heacock! |
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| At 1pm, Erika had a cover reveal for Deadly Sweet Lies! Isn't it pretty??? |
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And you really, really, really can't see how much I'm trying not to be a crazy fangirl around Rachel Harris!
I love her Super Sweet Sixteenth Century books, her Love and Games series, and love, love, love The Fine Art of Pretending!
I didn't come across as a crazy fangirl... I hope. |
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| We had a little Team Patricia field trip... |
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| ...to get our copies of The Fine Art of Pretending signed a *tiny* bit early (perks of being Team Patricia!!!) |
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| I was so excited to meet Veronica Bartles (Twelve Steps) in person. Bookishly wouldn't be anywhere near readable without her help and advice! |
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Did I almost cry on Amy Plum? Maybe.
Then, I tried to take a picture of her with Rachel and my camera couldn't handle all the awesome in one shot. |
I also made sure I didn't miss my chance to meet
Elizabeth Wein and get a signed copy of
Rose Under Fire. *sigh* I just LOVE her books. And I don't have pictures with the great
Cora Carmack and
Jennifer Armentrout, though I made sure to gush incoherently (welcome to my life) at them :)
Then, I finally met my agent,
Carrie Howland (and her gorgeous shoes) in person, and we went for empanadas with my agency sister,
Rachel Simon.
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| Team Howland!!! And yes, I look like a throwback to the late 1950s. |
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| Day 2's books. To the left, Spencer Hill! |
I didn't attend day 3--first because of skating things, second because crowds make me nervous and grumpy and Book Con was supposedly insane. But that's okay, because I had a wonderful day and a half in NYC!
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| One of the biggest hits from my "haul." Almost 2-year old nephew grabbed this button and kept happily saying "D!! D!!!" (he's too cool to say Daniel. It's just "D") |
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| And there were Divergent cookies. As a smart Erudite, I only ate the Erudite side and didn't drink anything at that booth. No simulation serum for me. |
Next year, God willing, I'll be back at BEA again... in my debut year. I'm scared and excited and can't wait.
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