Friday afternoon, I posted my first BEA recap which pretty much covered Sunday when I first arrived in New York and the Simon Schuster YA event. Today I want to share about Monday, June 3.
Monday was the Book Blogger Conference at the Javits. Gail (A Ticket to Anywhere) who was my roommate, and I, walked the 5 blocks to the Javits from our hotel. Once inside, we got in line for our badges for the week. And from there, in line to go into the breakfast that was the kickoff to our day and a “speed dating” event with authors. You chose a table that the author you wanted to chat with would be at – and then three authors rotated through your table while you ate. I have to break here and share my favorite in line to breakfast comment I heard from the blogger standing in front of me and Gail.
Blogger girl (chatting to friends): SO have you read Insurgent yet?
Blogger girls friends/minions (Gail’s fun word of the week): (a mix of yes and no’s and “huh?”)
Blogger girl: I thought it was good but I am so in love with _________________ (no spoilers for those who have not read it yet) and hope that is who she chooses. *sigh*
Blogger girls friends: * a mixture of head nods and mumblings of agreement
Blogger Girl: I really liked Divergent, but loved Insurgent… I can’t wait for the next book, what do you think they will call it? Detergent?
😯
😆
Ok – so anyway, I sat at Table 7 which was going to have Justin Cronin, author of The Passage and the author of the highly coveted by me, The Twelve. If I left BEA with one book, that needed to be the one. And so yeah, I hung out with Justin Cronin.
Yup, me and Justin. Justin and me. 😀
After the breakfast portion of the day, Jennifer Weiner spoke about books and bloggers and life stuff. She was pretty funny. At lunch we had the authors at the tables again and looking over my itinerary I seen that at my table 7 was going to be a Craft author. Crafts are so not my thing so I checked the schedule and moved to table 12 with Alison from Alison’s Book Marks where Erica Robuck would be the author. I read Erica’s book, Receive Me Falling back in 2009 and loved it. She said I was one of the first bloggers to read and review her book. What is cool about Erica’s story is that her first book was self published, and now this second book, Hemingway’s Girl, was purchased and published by NAL Trade. NICE!
Erica and I
After lunch I took a break from the afternoon sessions as out evening was packed, so I went back to the hotel – chilled for about an hour, changed into my clothes for the evening and came back for the closing talk with Jenny Lawson, The Bloggess, whose book is Let’s Pretend This Never Happened. (Listened to on audio and reviewed last month).
** Later I talked with fellow awesome Minnesotan Kim from Sophisticated Dorkiness about the afternoon break out sessions and here are two things I can take away from that I will apply:
1. Do not put your full reviews on Good Reads…. put a part of the review and then link it back to your blog for people to read the rest. Huh. I hadn’t thought of that before, but it makes sense. Until now, I have posted my full reviews on Good Reads.
2. Twitter is pretty much the best way for bookish communications/ linking posts/ and connecting with authors, publishers, fellow bloggers…. I needed to hear this. It is hard for me to do Twitter because I just dont take the time for it. I am trying now to be more open to Twitter and the possibilities of blog building it has.
So… Monday evening. Alison from Alison’s Book Marks and I made our way to Scholastic’s invite. I was uber excited as I had never been to Scholastic before. Alison graciously walked me through the Scholastic store which was truly drool worthy with all the great books I either have read or want to read…..
Their party was…. AWESOME. I am not just saying that either. They had popcorn and a cotton candy machine. Horduerves and lemonade, ice tea, or cola. It was a wonderful Middle Grade/YA get together! Once there we sat with Kathy from Burmuda Onion and Julie from Booking Mama.
And more was yet to come.
Scholastic had their authors each take a turn talking about their newest book. Then they read from the book, each author taking a character part. The result? HILARIOUS. James Dashner (author of Maze Runner, Scorch Trials…) was a hoot. He was so funny and always seemed to be given the funny parts such as “cranky grandmother” or “angry aunt”. And he played his parts well, even once saying he channeled Mrs. Doubtfire. His newest book Infinity Ring sounds fantastic!
Maggie Steifvater (author of Linger, Shiver, and Forever, just to name a few) is not only talented beyond belief, she is cut and funny and someone I think would be a blast to hang out with. Raven Boys is much coveted!
The one that surprised me the most was Eliot Schrefer, who’s book Endangered will be released this November. The book is about the Congo and a girl who is trying to save the endangered bonobos. I knew I did not want to read this book. I have such a soft heart for animals and animals hurting really breaks me up. As Elliot talked about his research with the bonobos, and then read an exert from his book… leaving us with a cliff hanger…
my heart stopped and my eyes welled up.
Then… they showed a picture of the cover:
Damn. Now I have to read this book, and did get an advanced reader copy at BEA.
Next stop (and yes, this is still Monday) was the Harper Collins party. As always, a blast. It was so fun to connect with blogger friends, authors, and Harper Collins peeps. I so enjoy this event every year! AND – it was time for my annual pic with Alison from Alison’s Book Marks. We have a funny tradition now of having a picture together at this event. We met at BEA in 2010 and connected over books and then in 2011, chatted again at the Harper Collins Party and this year, we hung out quite a bit which was a lot of fun.
and here we are in 2011…
and again in 2010…
Alison’s hair stays the same… I am always changing it up…LOL… now seeing these pics, I want to go short hair again. 😛 Its also funny, now that I look at these that we are always on the same side.
Later that evening, roomy Gail (Ticket To Anywhere), two other gals (forgive me… I have lost names and blogs in my head somewhere) went to an Irish pub for dinner. Gail and I are both Irish so this was so much fun and our waiter, Pearce (like Bronson) has such a thick great accent that I wanted to miniaturize him and keep him in my purse to take out for later get togethers. 😀
I was so tired in this pic with Gail. It had been a LONG Monday but filled with such great events!
Stay tune – BEA Recap 3 is coming (The Expo!)
and be sure to check out BEA Recap 1
Book Journey 
So much fun! Seeing your post makes me so mad that, once again, I didn’t take many pictures.
I took quite a few at the Scholastic event but hardly any at Harper Collins. I wish I had more there….
Thank for the recap! That is so cool you got to meet Erica. I love Receive Me Falling. 🙂
I loved that one too and I am so excited for her next book Anna! 😀
Thank you so much, Ladies! Truly.
Such fun to read this. Thanks for your detailed recaps – love them! Sounds you had a great time, and as a comment about your previous post, I think you were right to take it easy this weekend and not do the cycle ride. It’s a pity you had to miss out but it sounds like it was just way too much after such a busy week.
Hope you’re having fun relaxing!
I really wanted to go Judith – the weather was gorgeous yesterday, but hanging at home and catching up here was such a better idea. I am so relaxed now… I really needed that break 😀
Wow, I’m a bit tired just reading all you did on Monday. Sounds like you had a blast!
I did… I know New York usually means run hard… and I did 😀
I loved this post! And your hair is GORGEOUS don’t you dare cut it. 🙂
Thanks Christina – I needed that. I seen a cute bob style in New York and told Alison I wanted to take a pic of her and get my hair cut like that…. scary though… 😯
I so have to go to the next one of these! Looks like you had a great time!
Yes – June 4 -6 next year. It is such a blast I save for this all year long – I love getting my book/blogger fix with everyone 😀
I like that tidbit about posting only a partial review on Goodreads and linking to the blog for the rest. I think I’m going to start doing that!
Love the pics…and the stories. Sounds like a lot of fun.
I am going to start doing that too Laurel – I hadnt thought about that. Kim said I needed to know a bit of HTML to do this… GAH… I am not good with that but hope to figure it out 🙂
Gaah, you stole my line about Detergent! I have it in my upcoming review! I’ll have to change it now. (I hypothesized that the plot would be: she’s gonna wash that man right outta her hair!)
LOL… sorry Jill! 😀 Feel free to use it – I overheard it at BEA….. 😛
So, I guess I shouldn’t mention to you that Justin Cronin was MY WRITING TEACHER in grad school, should I?
Nah, I didn’t think so. 🙂
I always put my full review on Goodreads too. Never occurred to me to do otherwise. But you’re right, it makes perfect sense to link back to the blog. Duh.
And Twitter … yeah. I need to get better at Twitter. I’m not so good about that either.
SHUT UP! Gah…. Oh my GAH!!!! That is so awesomely cool!!!!!!!!
I am working on my Twitter presence…. I always get bored with it as the conversation seems slow to me… but of course if I was more active on it, people would know who I was and chat more….
It was so much fun meeting you in person at BEA! It looks like you had a great trip!
You too Erica – I am so excited about your new book!!!!
Once again, I will say that I really, really, really want to do this again! This is great Sheila! 🙂
Thanks Amanda! These posts tale so long to write – trying to link books, authors, and bloggers…. LOL…. but I think the story is worth telling 😀 I have such a blast and am really hoping (hoping..hoping!!!) that you will come next year! 😀
I was one of the other two you had dinner with after Harper party. 🙂 Was nice meeting you!
Thanks Rebecca! 😀 I could picture you but for the life of me could not recall your name! It was fun hanging out with you!
I’m exhausted just reading about your day….I’m also green 😉
Monday was HUGE. Actually -t he whole week was pretty huge. But oh so fun! 😀
That was so much fut to hear about! Thank you for sharing it all with us!
Sure… thanks for reading it 😀
I’m exhausted, Sheila! And you did this for a week!?!? You have more endurance than I do!
LOL – yes…. its crazy, and my legs hurt and we walk everywhere and I overdose on people and I love every exhausting minute of it 😀
Thanks for the GoodReads tip! I’m green too!
I was happy to share anything I learn 😀
I always put the full review up on goodreads too and never really thought about doing just a snippet, but that is a fantastic idea. Thanks for sharing what you learned at the panel!
No problem April – I wasnt even at the panel, I got that tip from Kim who was there…. I skipped out. 😀
No wonder you were exhausted when you got back… and this is only the first full day of events!
I need to be a better Twitterer too. It’s just so time consuming… I log on and the next thing I know an hour has passed.
I usually pull up Twitter while writing posts so I can go back and forth but dont stick with it enough to actually take part in conversations and build on it. I have been doing better with this since I got home, especially since I had a lot of practice using it on my phone during BEA.
When I was talking to my husband about my plans to go next year he said, “I thought you were going this year…” Hmmm…was thinking that it wouldn’t be a good idea with my son’s wedding coming up, but I guess it wouldn’t have mattered!
Definitely save the dates for next year! 😀
You are so funny with our pictures…and we are always on the same side! I think it’s time I change my hair. I had so much fun hanging out with you last week. Great fun!
I love this! The party looks like it was a blast and I am a TOTAL Maggie Fan-girl. LOVE her. I am so excited to read The Raven Boys.
And was there a love triangle in Insurgent? I think I completely missed it!