Book Expo America 2012 Recap Part 4

This is the final BEA post and whew, it's been a journey! There's still a little bit left to go, so bear with me.

Before I start, I completely forgot about a few things that happened during Tuesday and Wednesday on the floor:

1) Upon arriving Wednesday, I immediately went to the Lerner booth to try and get an ARC of Skylark by Meagan Spooner. I wouldn't be around for her signing on Thursday since I had a train to catch but I really wanted the book. Meagan happened to be there right when I arrived at their booth and introduced herself after I asked about Skylark. It took some convincing, but they eventually gave me a copy (hardcover) and Meagan signed it right there for me. She was the sweetest!! I'm very sad I have to miss her book launch event! I hate being broke.

2) I got an ARC of Level 2 by my friend Lenore Appelhans! Once again, Justin Chanda, head of S&S Childrens Publishing, saved the day. I had tried to get one at BEA Tuesday, then at TAC, then again Wednesday morning sometime and lo and behold, I got one! He only had two left so I was so grateful I made it in time. And I say "once again" because I met Justin at ALA back in 2010 when they were giving out Zombies v. Unicorns ARCs (I had missed them at BEA the previous month). They were only giving them out at Holly Black's signing if you bought a book. I had the David Levithan/John Green signing to go to so wanted to try and grab an ARC before they were all gone. He initially said no and I was like "Ok, well thank you for your time!" (I'm not a blogger who gets upset at being denied), and talked to my awesome friend Meaghan until I had to go. As I went back through the S&S booth, they were getting out the ZvU ARCs and Justin said "Hey" and gave me one! I was so grateful and had no idea how high up he was at S&S. Then he saved the day again- he is one awesome, sweet guy!

Alright, back to Wednesday night. So I left the Javits and went back to the hotel. My roommates had left already, so I was by myself for this final night. I relaxed a bit and tried to read Hourglass by Myra McEntire on my computer, but I made the mistake of getting into bed under the covers to do it. After 3 days of non-stop action and little sleep, I was friggin' tired. I meant to just rest my eyes for a couple minutes, then go back to reading. I fell asleep for almost an hour (yes, with my laptop still in my lap), luckily waking up just 10 minutes after the time I had wanted to leave at to grab dinner before the rooftop party. I immediately rushed out and grabbed the subway down to near the Hudson, where the party was being held.

I wanted to go to Shake Shack while in New York City and there was one right near the party! It was fate. Not only that but when I walked up to go in, I saw Susane Colasanti and Elizabeth Eulberg sitting outside eating their own meals. I wanted to make sure it was Susane though before saying hi, so I ordered and then very slowly walked back outside, all the while staring at Susane. I came over to their table and said hi. We chatted for a while, then I had to go back inside to check on my food cuz my pager wasn't buzzing. Turns out they'd been calling it for like 10 minutes, but it never rang for me!! Anyway, the food was amazing, though I couldn't finish it all. But what was really amazing was that I was having dinner with SUSANE COLASANTI AND ELIZABETH EULBERG!!! I love these two authors (and all their books) and they're such sweethearts. It was great chatting with them about books, the weather (Susane is a weather expert, having been a former science teacher), their upcoming events together, and pretty much a bunch of other stuff. I loved it and hope they did too!

We then walked over to the Tribeca Pointe Building and took the elevator up, wherein Susane chatted with a person who lived there and said she was jealous of him for living there. Being in the solarium/on the rooftop was AMAZING, as you can see from my pictures, but they really don't do it justice. Susane and I pretty much went around the whole wrap-around and took pictures of everything.

Once that was done though, I fell into awkward mingling mode where I pretty much stand off by myself, sipping my champagne (which I'm not a fan of, but felt I needed to finish anyway- they had some Sprite or something too, so I refilled my glass with that, lol). I did get taken pity on by Charlotte Bennardo (such a delight to chat with), Tamara Ireland Stone (who says I was a delight, but I think she's lying, lol), and Alyssa Grosso (I told her I'd grabbed her book the previous morning and she was happy about that). I did also finangle myself into Meagan Spooner's chat with someone (cannot remember who, and I feel so bad about that!) and that was nice, though the bottom of my champagne glass fell off during the discussion- embarrassing! Meagan actually also came up to me later and told me to introduce her to people I knew, lol. Literally, right at that moment, Zoraida Cordova (who's lovely too) came by and said hi, so I introduced them to each other. We had a chat about how hard it is to mingle.

I also chatted with Andye and Amy of Reading Teen, Gretchen McNeil, Jenny Han, Julia DeVillers, Crissa Jean Chappell, and Lenore Appelhans but I also missed some people there! It was sad when I then heard about some authors and bloggers who had been there without my knowing! I left after a few hours, but not before I won something (notebook and signed poster!), grabbed a swag bag and got pictures with Gretchen, Crissa, and Elizabeth. It was such an amazing night and I was so happy to be a part of it.

I walked back to the subway by myself (Mitali helped me with directions), got back to the hotel, and started to pack because I had to bring all my stuff with me to the Javits as I was leaving straight from there to Penn Station. I put on my Hush Hush shirt and sang and danced around while I packed my books and clothes. OMG MY SUITCASE WAS SO HEAVY! I left out my Land of Stories tote cuz it was smaller than the others and would be perfect for what I needed the following day.

Thursday morning, I overslept a bit (my alarm didn't go off) and made it to the Javits about the time it opened. My first stop was the Entangled Booth because the previous day, I'd been chatting with Sara of Novel Novice and Tiffany Truitt and was told to get a copy of The Chosen Ones. But when I got there, nobody was at the booth, so I looked around a bit for a copy of The Chosen Ones that wasn't the display copy. I didn't find any, so I just took the display copy (making sure first it was the actual book) and then rushed over to Kirstie Alley's line. I'm not proud of what I did, but hey, at least I reviewed it (as part of a blog tour) and didn't sell it on ebay.

I luckily made it to Kirstie's line when it was still short. I was probably about 10 people back. I was near the cute boy from the Chris Colfer and Tim Gunn lines again, but was too shy to say anything. However, I did chat with a lovely lady (we exchanged business cards) while we waited in line. They said Kirstie wasn't doing personalizations, but she secretly was- she'd ask you what your name was when you got up there. I was too star-struck to say anything other than my name and thank you. If I had been able to say something, I'd let her know how funny I thought she was and how much I loved her. She's such a funny, outspoken lady and I love that! She was also only signing postcards of her cover with info printed on the back. But still, I have a Kirstie autograph now!

Since the Kirstie signing took WAY less time than I originally thought, I was able to stop by Alexandra Bracken's signing (so happy I got to say hi to her!) and Jackson Pearce's signing (apparently she saw me at TAC, but wasn't sure it was me so she didn't come up to say hi, lol). I also stopped by a couple booths since there wasn't much for me to do that day. I swung by Flux to see if they had any Narc goodies (tote bag, bookmarks, etc.) but they did not. I did swing by Little Brown's booth and was excited to see copies of Eternally Yours by Cate Tiernan left out! I thought I was going to miss that book drop, but I guess they did it early. I asked about Return to Me by Justina Chen, but was told ARCs hadn't been printed yet (BUT THEY HAD- I saw copies in various peoples' BEA hauls). That made me sad cuz I love Justina's books so much!

I then left a little after 11 so I could get to Penn Station to take my train back home. I went to the cab line outside Javits (my original plan of walking with my stuff would not have worked. AT ALL.). I shared a cab with a lovely lady who worked at a publishing house, but not in YA, though one of her co-workers is a YA author. I'm trying to remember which author it was because I had already received an advance copy of the book and was excited about it. Why didn't I write this down?! If I remember, I'll come back and edit.

Anyway, I took the train back home and all was well. Another AWESOME BEA. I can't wait for next year!!

Pic 1- An amazing view from the rooftop party
Pic 2- Elizabeth Eulberg and I!!
Pic 3- Crissa Jean Chappell and I!!
Pic 4- Gretchen McNeil and I!!
Pic 5- Kirstie Alley signing!
Pic 6- Alexandra Bracken signing!
Pic 7- Another amazing view from the rooftop party.