Here are some pictures of our booth and some of the things we did. Eventually we'll go back when I have our camera and I'll show you the neighborhood, which is kinda funky.
Anyway, here's our corner of the world.
To the right, as you're facing the booth, was the door out to the food court. To our left -- where that pile of posters is -- was the Bookworm Exchange, and beyond that was the main hallway.
That big honking contraption in the back corner there was an unplugged refrigerator. There were some people we wanted to shove in there and leave.
None of us who went to panels remembered to take pictures, of course, but after one good-sized panel out in a portable, we had the authors come back and sign.
Yeah, and look at those curtains again. Those were the supposed "dividers". Not much of a sound barrier there, would you say? This was the group I was working with when we were shushed.
Incidentally, that's Michael Gruber sitting down, and standing behind him is the fabulous Kevin O'Brien. I am blocking Robert Ferrigno, I'm afraid.
And speaking of Kevin, who is, I believe, a USA Today AND New York Times Bestselling Author (as are Michael and Robert, of course), Kev had his own paparazzi! It was MOST exciting.
Turns out that his publisher decided to profile five authors, and one was Kevin. So they sent out this incredible film and photo crew from New York, and these guys followed our Mr. O'Brien everywhere (except into the bright blue bathrooms, or so I'm told), and I can't wait to see how it all turns out.
Well, here they are, videotaping and photographing Kevin talking to JB.
Kevin told me all the folks these two have worked with. Small, unimportant names that no one has ever heard of. Like Meryl Streep. Glenn Close. You know. Nobodies.
Wow.
Somewhere there's a picture of me and Kevin looking soulfully into each others' eyes, all the while cracking up. Great fun was had by all. If you don't believe me, check out how much Kevin laughs! And his videographer took a nice long pan of our O'Brien display.
But we did have fun.
And I even got to sit down once or twice.
That's Marie hanging out with me. It was one of our slow times, and we didn't have as many of those on Sunday as we thought we would.
See, I really DO work once in a while! And I did NOT ignore Garth Stein (who wrote The Art of Racing in the Rain, which is not a mystery but ohmygod it's good! Thank you, Tammy, for insisting I read it!) who is a good friend of Kevin's, but in fact got Garth to inscribe my copy of his book to me.
And ladies and gentlemen, if you ever get a chance to meet Garth, his eyes are just as amazing as you think they are. Just sayin'.
So anyway, that was our BookFest. It wasn't as busy as those in the past, which is probably a good thing. But it wasn't a bad beginning either.
I've said it once, I'll say it again, you really do have the coolest job in the world! So Jealous!
Posted by: Lil | October 28, 2009 at 08:09 AM
I'm so glad you got to meet Garth. I am evangelical about The Art of Racing in the Rain, here's my post about having Garth read at Second Life. There's a video and the whole podcast at the bottom.
http://bit.ly/2BGXtc
I had fun making the Garth avatar. He was insistent that the goatee be just right! LOL. Jess Walter was delighted with his av, say hi to him for me tomorrow!
Posted by: SeattleTammy | October 28, 2009 at 07:35 PM