Picture Post- Elizabeth Scott + Claudia Gray signing

So almost a month later, I am finally posting about this event, lol. Alright, to start off, Tyson's Corner is a BIG area. Much bigger than I thought it was. I had planned on going to a Popeyes for lunch, but couldn't find it even though it was supposedly just down the road from the mall. So instead, I just went to McDonald's for lunch, which was fine as well. I quite enjoyed it; while at McDonald's, I read some of Because I Am Furniture by Thalia Chaltas.

After lunch, I went and parked in basically the first parking spot I found because it was seriously crowded. It turned out I had parked on the complete other side of the mall from where the B&N was. So I had to walk a long way to get to the bookstore. Of course, I went straight for the YA section where I found Harmony from Harmony Book Reviews. We hadn't planned on any specific place to meet up at, but YA lovers always convene in the same place at a bookstore, lol. We chatted for a few minutes and showed off YA books to each other and talked about them. After a bit of that, we grabbed some seats in the front row for the signing. Here's a pic of the display they had behind all the chairs:



We chatted some more while we waited for Elizabeth and Claudia to show up. Elizabeth showed up first and she's more petite than I thought she would be, but I think it's just her wild hair that gave me that perception. Claudia showed up a little bit after that and they sat down. They read an excerpt from each of their books (Evernight and Love You Hate You Miss You), and were going to take questions from the audience but there weren't a whole lot of people there, so they just started signing after the reading. The event lasted about 15 minutes; it was way short, but still fun! Here's a picture of them signing with Harmony on the right and some girl I don't know on the left:



They signed for a bit. I went to Elizabeth first and when I explained who I was (well, really, it was just "Hi, I'm James aka Book Chic."), she was like "OMG! Come here!", stood up, and hugged me which I thought was just so sweet. She thanked me for my review of LYHYMY. I brought two copies of LYHYMY because HarperTeen had sent me an extra hardcover the day before. I was going to use the hardcover in a contest, but that ended up not happening. You'll find out why later. After Elizabeth, I got my copy of Stargazer signed by Claudia and she was so sweet too. She had on the most AMAZING black dress, which you can't really see in the photos I took but ah well. I had my picture taken with both of them, which Harmony's aunt (I think?) took for me, which I really appreciated since I had no one with me at this signing aside from them.



After that, I spotted Diana Peterfreund hunched over her cell phone twittering or texting away and I'm like "Diana?". She looks up and says "James?" and I confirmed that yes, I am James and we may have hugged but I don't remember. We chatted about Transformers, Hot Wheels, movies, and maybe a little on books, but not much. She went to get her stuff signed and chatted with Elizabeth and Claudia a bit while I wandered off to do some browsing and wait for my friend Liz. After a while, I went back up and listened in on the conversation that Diana and Claudia were having with two booksellers (one who worked the event and one who worked at another B&N in the area). It was really interesting. And I like to jokingly say that Diana hijacked the Claudia/Elizabeth signing because she signed copies of her Secret Society Girl series and was sitting at their signing table doing it. It made me giggle.

Anyway, while we were all chatting, Maggie Stiefvater showed up with her sister and children like an hour after the signing ended. So unfortunately, she didn't get to have her books signed but she bought a signed stock copy of Stealing Heaven. My friend Liz showed up and so I said bye to Diana and as we passed by the cash registers, Maggie had finished paying and everything and so we were able to chat a few minutes before she headed back out on the road. We made an impromptu book swap- she asked me if I had a copy of Shiver and if I didn't have one, if I wanted a copy, and I was like "Uh yeah, OF COURSE!!" and she opened up her messenger bag and took out an ARC of Shiver and gave it to me. How sweet is that? Seriously. And she was hoping that she would see me at the signing to give it to me. It was all planned! Maggie rocks. So, in return, I gave her my signed hardcover of Love You Hate You Miss You which she was extremely excited about. On her Twitter account later, she said that I had saved the day, which made me happy.

Phew, that's about it. Now to start work on RWA post(s) and Melissa/Kelley signing. Will try and get these up before a month has passed.