BEST.BOOKISH.DAY.EVER!!!

September 23, 2012 by · 29 Comments

So remember that time I told you that on the top of my top ten list of bookish people to meet was John Green? And remember when I told you that there was a chance that THIS WEEKEND I could potentially meet him??

Yeah? You remember?

WELL IT HAPPENED.

 

But let’s back up first…

 

The beginning of the weekend started off with the lovely Alexa (from Alexa Loves Books) coming down from NYC to Philly to stay with us so that we could venture down to the National Book Fest in DC — an event that I have enjoyed in the past! She came bearing gifts in the form of cupcakes from Crumbs — an hour or so late because Megabus was late in NYC (see: theme for our weekend).

Saturday morning we woke up, surprisingly perky for 4:30 in the morning, and the husband dropped us off at the bus station for us to catch our 5:50am bus. And well…it never showed up. And then the 6:30 bus never showed up. And then it was 7am. And friends, Alexa and I had panic in our eyes for you see JOHN GREEN was speaking at 10 and his signing was directly afterwards and we’d never make it if our bus even showed up in that minute or even if the Mr. came back to pick us up and I battled the Beltway and parking and drove to DC.

The only way to ensure we saw John Green was in the form of a $70 Amtrack train that left in 10 minutes?

So naturally we RAN to the train station, I might add with NO COFFEE in our system, and purchased our tickets and heard the sweet sound of the loudspeaker telling us that the train was JUST starting to board. We made it JUST IN TIME. We settled into that glorious seat on the train and in a fit of rage I did this (though, I must add that our trip on the way home was just fine and Megabus has since promptly put in a refund for me after I tweeted about it!)

 

After a nice train ride and some awesome conversation, we followed the obelisk and found our way to the National Mall and over to the tent to see John Green. OH HEY…look at the obelisk!

 

We listened to John Green speak for a bit, and since we knew the lines would be cray, we ducked out early to stand in line.  Only..there were  like hundreds of of other people who had the same idea so we already were behind a TON of other people. So naturally we did what bookish friends do and read silently together. Although not really because we talked too much and met other cool bookish people!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The line wasn’t too painful. AND THEN. IT HAPPENED. I MET JOHN GREEN!!!!!!!! (insert squeals of excitement for me). Naturally I babbled on about how I used a quote of his from Paper Towns as part of our wedding reception decorations and he thought that was cool and congratulated me on my marriage! It was either babbling like a moron or peeing my pants! And then, our new friend Emily (a totally awesome John Green fan that we met) snapped this picture of me with JOHN GREEN! HI EMILY AND THANK YOU!!!

 

A definite showing in my “That’s What They Said” feature for anyone who gives the best caption to what John Green is thinking/saying in this picture.

All in all, John ended up signing like 1500 people’s books because HE IS AWESOME. All other authors (true the other year I went) only sign an hour and John signed from 11-2. He does amazing things for his fans!

Post-Meeting John Green Excitement.

 

We spent the rest of the day in the YA tent listening to some amazing authors that I never get tired of seeing (David Levithan, Maggie Stiefvater, Melissa Marr) and OMG OMG OMG I saw and listened to RL Stine — the man responsible for cultivating a love of reading in this here blogger. You all have him to thank for the fact that I am here talking about the Majestic World Of Books here on the interwebs. He is a true genius. We also met new blogger Nikki of Foil The Plot   (go welcome her!!) and Sarah of The Librarian Reads!!

After a truly WONDERFUL day, Alexa and I made our way back to the station, ate some burger and talked about books, blogging and life all the way home.

Is this a dream? Did this really happen? Was I so close I could have bear hugged John Green? AHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Filed Under: author events, author signing, Book Events, book signing, book signings Tagged With: , , , , ,

How To Find Out About Bookish Events Like A Boss!

September 12, 2012 by · 17 Comments

I go to A LOT of bookish events — conferences, author signings, festivals. Seriously, A LOT, in only 2 and almost a half years of blogging. If it’s got books (and I can drive/bus/take a train..and on occasion, even fly to get there) I’m there!  It also helps that I live in Philadelphia so we get some decent tours and I’m only a train ride away from NYC and DC. So there’s that.  I know not everyone lives in a place where book tours come through often. So I can’t help you on that one but after getting a lot of people asking me HOW I find out about all these tours and this recent question on my My Bookish Calendar post (check out this month’s if you are in the Philly area or DC area), I decided to address it. PS. OMG I’m still freaking out that I got my picture with THE Stephanie Perkins!!

I’m fairly new to the book blogging community and I’m curious, how in the world do you bloggers find out about all these book tours and events? It seems every blog I go to I see that the bloggers are attending all these events, and I’m like geez how much time do you find these things? Like do you look up tours for every author you read, or is it word of mouth, or things you just stumble upon in the blogosphere? It sounds like such a nerd-fest, I want to participate! – C

 

1. Get to know your local bookstores: Every month or so when I’m compiling my list for My Bookish Calendar I go on the website of every bookstore that I know of in a radius that I’m willing to drive or ones that I’ve been to for bookish events and check out their events tab. For me, that’s about 6-8 bookstores that I know have events — two are Barnes & Noble and all the rest are indies. It took me a while to figure out which ones have events but now I know which ones do and don’t so I don’t really waste my time checking out the other ones. Also, subscribe to their mailing list. My local indie always has monthly emails where they talk about books but also announce their tours going on. Total time saver!

2. Stalk your fave authors social media outlets: It would be so time consuming to search for events for every single author I want to see. So I make sure I follow their Twitter accounts, Facebook and blogs to be able to glance and see if they’ve announced tours. It’s saved me a few times to see an author tweet an event or blog about their tour  schedule if the bookstore hadn’t put it up when I looked or if I just was too busy to stalk my bookstores.

3. Get to know local book bloggers: This is another great way to find out about events.  The Philly area book bloggers are always tweeting one another about events so we all know! Some regions of book bloggers even have their own blogs to keep each other in the loop about bookish events (the  Texas bloggers are the best example…DAMN how I wish I lived in Texas because they get ALLLL OF THE GOOD THINGS). So put the call out on your blog or Twitter (people on Twitter are so helpful) and ask who lives in your general vicinity. Someone will point you in the right direction!

4. Check the publisher’s websites & social media accounts: Most publishers have an area where you can search for authors from their publishing house who are going on tour. They also tweet and FB about bigger tours — a la the Breathless Reads tours (Penguin) or the Dark Days (HarperTeen) which all have their own FB pages. (Example: HarperTeen). If you can’t find where they have that info, tweet them or FB them!

5. Goodreads Events: Goodreads has this nifty little feature where you can search for events near your area. It’s helped a few times though I will admit it is NOT the most effective method I have on this list.

6. Find a copy of your local newspaper: Yes, they still exist. And sometimes in the events section they let you know about bookish events going on. This is is my least used method but I have used it before.

7. Use the Google Machine: Sometimes you just have to start googling for events. Search for “Philly book events” (or obviously whatever region you want) and see what comes up. Before I figured out which bookstores did events frequently I was ALWAYS just googling to find stuff. Sometimes it would lead me to another blogger or bookstore. I still do it on occasion to see if I missed anything but sometimes it’s helped me to find a new bookstore that I had never knew  existed or who just started doing book events.  Seriously, there is this local book store that I found doing this and they were new (well old but had been bought out or something) and now they host SO many book events.

Like I said before, sometimes you might live in a remote place that doesn’t bring tours your way..and that just plain old stinks! But if you are lucky to be within driving distance and are willing to drive a few hours, you can still catch a great weekend tour sometimes!

Another tip if your area doesn’t get many book events: Talk to the manager or owner of your local bookstore and tell  them that you’d really like to see some authors visit the shop. When I visited the HarperTeen staff two years ago at BEA, we had a roundtable discussion and one of the questions I asked was how to get all these great authors to your local bookstores. Their advice was to talk to the bookstores, have them talk to the publishers and give them ideas for “hot” authors right now. Also be VERY willing to get the word out online and around your town and help out if they need it.

Anybody else have any other advice?? How do YOU find out about book events?  Does your region have a blogger who handles keeping a list of upcoming author signings and book events??

Filed Under: blogging advice, blogging community, blogging talk, book blog issues, book blogger meetup, Book Events, discussion Tagged With: , ,

In Which Book Bloggers Get Rained On: Brooklyn Book Festival 9/12/10

September 13, 2010 by · 15 Comments

Did you think the rain was going to stop us from running amok at the Brooklyn Book Festival?? Absolutely not. And neither was missing a train or getting my car towed!


Lori,  Lenore & myself

To say the Brooklyn Book Festival was a wonderful experience would be an understatement. To say my journey to get there was a wonderful experience would be a BIG FAT LIE. To make a long story short–I wake up at 4:45am. Blah. I’m going to miss my train and so I make a detour to another station that I might have a chance of making and only half pay attention to parking signs as I’m unfamiliar with this station. Apparently, it is permit parking only and is a tow-away zone. Oopsie. I freak out, as I’m already on the train, and get worried that I’ll be towed or heavily fined. That is how I started out. (Luckily, later on in the day, my wonderful stepdad went and took care of things). 
 
Anyways, on to the good stuff. I meet up with Lenore from Presenting Lenore and her husband, Daniel, on the train to Penn Station. Lenore is so wonderful and sweet! She helped calm me down during my panic session about my car! I’m sure I made quite a first impression haha. Anyways, it was really nice chatting with her on the train. We then meet up with Lori from The Next Best Book Club at Penn Station and take the subway to Brooklyn. This is exciting as we have “known” each other on Goodreads for 2 years!! And I must say, it was not a disappointment! We had so much fun together.

We arrived there early so we walked around and tried to get the lay of the land and meet up with our friends Erika and Amy over at Harper Perennial. So nice to finally meet Erika as she gives me awesome book recommendations! Our first panel was at 11am where we attended “Next Texts: Five Debut Novelists” where we saw Sean Ferrell, Ivy Pochoda, Helen Simonson, Tanya Wright (FROM TRUE BLOOD!) and Teddy Wayne read from their books. Some new books were added to my mental TBR list during this panel! 

Lori and I part ways at 12  and I make my way to the panel that I was MOST excited for– “Pop Life: Music, Memory, and America’s Coming to Age.” This is where I will enter a big fan girl SQUEE because I met ROB SHEFFIELD!

Rob & I!

This panel was hilarious and awesome with the mix of Rob, Joshua Clover, and Ta-Nehisi Coates. I laughed so much. Music is very important to me and this panel was so interesting as each panelist discussed music’s role in their lives, as all of them write about music, and how songs take on many personal and political meanings throughout our life and how that shapes some of who we are and how we define ourselves. It was something I could really relate to. 


Then we had some free time and I got to meet up with a good friend from the College Students group on Goodreads that I created! She was one of the first five or so people in the group when it started exactly two years ago and we’ve always gotten along real well. It was wonderful to meet her and I told my boyfriend, when I got home, that  if we lived nearby we’d pretty much be best friends. Good times for sure. 

We then made our way over to the Youth Stoop to see Lauren Oliver, Sara Shepard and Jenny Han read from their novels and  discuss the theme of redemption in terms of their characters and also in life. It was a really interesting and Kirsten Miller, who was the moderator, asked some really interesting questions. It was interesting to learn who the authors were in high school and if they feel like they are the same role that they played in high school. After that I rushed over to get Lauren Oliver to sign my copy of Before I Fall. She was really sweet and we chatted a little about how popular YA is with people who are older than the  “targeted” age. 

Kirsten, Jenny, Sara,  Lauren

The last hour or so we went to see readings by Per Petterson (whose books I need to pick up ASAP), Scott  Spencer and Terese Svoboda. After that, since we decided we didn’t feel like waiting in the rain for tickets to see Dennis Lehane, we went back to Harper’s booth and said bye to Erika!  We had a good time talking and laughing with her and all agreed that we couldn’t wait to be dry and warm! I, for one, was pretty sick of looking and feeling like a wet dog. I mean, honestly, I was looking like a hot mess after being rained on all day and up since an ungodly hour. After we said goodbye, Lori and I made a quick pit stop to the Dennis Lehane signing and I also got to meet Nick Flynn!  And then, it was adios to Brooklyn, and back to public transportation.

Erika & I



Throughout the day I also got to meet some other bloggers and that is always exciting to put a face to a blog name! I got the pleasure of meeting Nicole from Linus’s Blanket, Allie from Hist-Fic Chick, and Mitali from Alley of Books. 




All said and done, rain and my epic morning failure to be on time aside, it was an awesome event and I will be returning next year! On to the National Book Festival in two weeks where I may or may not have another fangirl moment  while I meet Jonathan Safran Foer!

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Filed Under: Book Events, Non-review Tagged With: ,