We go most years. I'm from New York, and I'll take almost any excuse to get back there. This time, though, my mother is in the midst of packing up the Long Island house she's lived in for 38 years--the house I lived in from two to eighteen, and then sporadically even after that, during summers, long visits, and for a year when I was 26, very soon after my father died. This was our last trip back east staying in my childhood home.
Anyway so that's weird.
It was also our first trip back east with the new baby, who turned six months old during the trip. Also weird. But primarily a big pain in the butt when her nursing mother has to be on the floor at Javits for like 16 hours over two days.
I've digressed like crazy. Here was my literary time in New York, in a nutshell:
Last Wednesday, my esteemed editor Jordan Brown and I had a conversation/reading thing at McNally Jackson books in SoHo. I think it went pretty well. The writers in attendance included three of my faves--Crissa Chapel, Bennett Madison, and Nova Ren Suma--so that made the evening special right off the bat. And a very cool surprise for me: an old friend and former bandmate of mine who happens to be called Greg and happened to inspire (to a small degree) a character of that name in GUY IN REAL LIFE also showed.
Crissa took a photo while I was reading!
Nova took a photo too while Jordan was talking and glared I guess!
On Thursday morning, I was back in the city again, this time for a half-hour signing at BEA proper.
When Jordan informed me they'd scheduled a 30-minute slot for me, I was all, "Whew, because once I had an hour slot and no one came hardly and that is super depressing!" As it happened, though, the line was pretty strong this year, and I got to meet some people I've only ever tweeted with in the past, such as
Jordan took a photo of us!
THEN, after the 30 minutes were up and I still had a stack of books and a nice long line still waiting, the good people of BEA moved me to a vacant line so I could continue signing books for another 20 minutes, at which time we ran out of books.
And speaking of running out of books, the last three people in line--too late for the books, actually--were Sarah, Mandy, and Mandy of Forever Young Adult, the freshest YA review blog around. Jordan took a photo of us, too!
And have you seen their review? I'm a little into it.
Sadly, here endeth my BEAdventure this year, for with a mother packing and tossing and sorting through nearly 40 years of memories, and with a 5-year-old child who was growing more and more irritated with his parents' absence and the dusty boringness of Grandma's packing and tossing and sorting, I didn't do seriously a single iota of extra socializing with book people and missed a lot of really cool stuff.
Maybe next year.
