BEA 2012 Recap

I got back on Wednesday night from BEA, where I had the most wonderful time. I got to attend the Amazon cocktail party at the rooftop bar on top of the Ink48 Hotel (possibly the nicest place I've ever stayed). After that, Kathleen and Joanna Volpe took Megan Powell (another Amazon author who is Jo's client) and her husband, and I to a restaurant that turned out to be closed "by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene." Good thing there was another more mentally healthy restaurant nearby.

Me and Kathleen on the rooftop (it was windy!)

On Tuesday, I didn't really attend any panels ... I mostly walked around in a haze of bemusement, taking in the beautiful (seriously, have you seen the cover for Becca Fitzpatrick's FINALE?), the unusual (there were a few ladies dressed up as angels ... and a few shirtless guys with wings as well), the childlike (Olivia Pig!) ...

A view of BEA from an upper floor

Aaaaah! It's Olivia!!

But this was the one that made my little heart beat really fast:

This is the Amazon Children's Publishing Booth! And that's SANCTUM!

So, here is the Amazon Children's Publishing booth, my home at BEA. The ACP team treated me like a star. I've never experienced anything like it. Everybody was so excited about SANCTUM! Not the least of whom is my editor, Courtney Miller, who made sure I had everything I needed, right down to bandaids for my blistered feet. The team surrounding this book is so exceptional, and it left me feeling really confident that SANCTUM is going to be given the best chance of success (oh, hey, did I mention there's going to be an audio book?!?)

Of course, I was also excited to hang out with Kathleen, Joanna, and Walter Jury, my co-author for SCAN. And, through an interesting series of connections, I also found myself spending a substantial portion of Tuesday afternoon with Janet Reid, who is just as brilliant, frank, and hilarious in person as she is online.

On Wednesday morning, I had my very first book signing EVER. For the first five minutes, my hands were shaking so badly I could barely sign my name. My maps were gone after about 15 minutes, and we ran out of the day's allotment of ARCs about 25 minutes after that. It was great fun to sign books for librarians, book bloggers, book buyers, teachers ... so many of them with plans to put SANCTUM in the hands of a teen. It was such a privilege to be able to give out the book like that.

If you're wondering, yes, I DID spend the entire few days grinning like a freaking idiot.

And then I got to eat fries at a diner and hang out with Courtney for a bit longer. We walked down to see the Space Shuttle being loaded onto the Intrepid on the Hudson River. A very mellow afternoon to top off an awesomely hectic 48 hours.

The space shuttle. #random but #cool

Me and my lovely editor, Courtney Miller

I hope I get to go to BEA next year, because I think I'll be more with it and grab a few more ARCs and attend a few more panels. This year, I really just took it all in, still stunned by the fact that I was allowed to be part of it at all.

If I get to go again, maybe I'll bring a suitcase to fill with ARCs!

Anyway--for those of you who are interested, on Monday, I'll be interviewing the extremely talented cartographer who created the map of the dark city in SANCTUM, and I'll be giving away one of his maps and an ARC to one of my commenters.

Here's another tiny sneak peek of the map...which I will tuck into an ARC and send to Monday's winner!