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!

My Big Fatass BEA Bookbags

Visited BEA 2011 yesterday for work purposes and found the place was lousy with literary agents. I passed one who has my full manuscript, another who holds a partial, another with a query. But could I speak to them? Nay! I did not want to be the wanna-be author going stalky-stalky in the fluorescence of the (horrible) Javits Center, leaping like a sweaty wildcat upon the unwary agent, two huge bags of ARCS and schwag swinging like fatass saddlebags from my shoulders:

"Um, um, um you read my BOOK yet? You got my book! You read it? HAVE YOU READ IT FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE? D'ya like it?! Can I use that table, over there, for my author signing?"

No, that would not be me, but the whole thing was tough. Everyone has nametags! And the agents' tags have a RED strip at the bottom of their badge, so you can spot them and get that little salivary stalking instinct. Also, the place is even lousier with authors than it is with agents, and they are published. People wait in line to get their signatures. This breeds jealousy, and jealousy hurts.

However, I am gulping down my jealousy to link to some new titles I received ARCs for and of which I heard much buzz/praise. I didn't get copies of everything I saw, because I couldn't carry any more with me. I found myself longing for an eReader, because the fatass bookbags I have mentioned knocked over some old and infirm people as I trudged to the subway after the event.

When She Woke, By Hillary Jordan (Algonquin Books)

(Note: This is the only book I have actually started reading of my new batch, and therefore it's at the top of my list.) I read Mudbound and loved it. So when I heard this new book was out, I darted right over to the Algonquin booth and pleaded for a copy. From page one, this book is intense and terrifying. A cross between The Hunger Games, The Handmaid's Tale, and The Scarlet Letter, When She Woke opens with protagonist Hannah Payne awakening to find her skin, from head to toe, dyed a vivid red through a process called "chroming." She is a felon, convicted of murdering her unborn child, in a futuristic world where church and state are dangerously blurred. For thirty days, her imprisonment will be televised. Then she'll be released into the world, where an even more painful imprisonment will begin. I'll probably be up all night tonight reading this.

Bedbugs, By Ben H. Winters (Quirk Books 9/6/11)
From the author of Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. Everyone is terrified of bedbugs, so writing an "understated horror" novel about this topic is a stroke of brilliance. When I brought out the book and showed it to a few friends, they shuddered. One almost screamed, and said she stays up at night searching for bedbugs. In the book, a "perfect couple" in search of a dream brownstone in Brooklyn Heights find something more sinister: The bedbug problem from hell! My skin crawls at the prospect, although bedbugs are not one of my major phobias. They soon will be.

Why We Broke Up, By Daniel Handler (Little, Brown 1/12)

Follows the story of how Min and Ed "met at a party, saw a movie, followed an old woman, shared a hotel room, and broke each other's hearts." The book came with a postcard on which readers can write in "We broke up because..." and mail it in to the publisher. At the show, there were many such postcards tacked on a board with amusing and heartbreaking reasons for the end of romance. My favorite: "Because he was an ass."

And here are several more than sounded incredibly good but I don't have time to write about in detail. Someone has written about them on Amazon already. You can read it all there. And even order the books should you so desire. Enjoy!

The Language of Flowers, By Vanessa Diffenbaugh (8/23/11)

Victoria has spent her childhood in the foster care system; her only connection to the world is through the world of flowers and their meanings.

Wildwood, by Colin Meloy (8/30/11)

Someone called this "The American Chronicles of Narnia." An adventure into the Impassable Wilderness, a tangled and magical forest in the middle of Portland.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone, by Laini Taylor (9/27/11)
A YA "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" with a mysterious and unique blue-haired MC.

Carrier of the Mark, by Leigh Fallon (10/11)
Megan moves to Ireland, meets hot boy, discovers she has power over one of the four elements.

Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick, by Joe Schreiber (10/11)
Average high school guy spends a wild prom night with geeky Lithuanian exchange student—who is really an international assassin!


The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer, by Michelle Hodkin (9/11)
Mara wakes up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there. Then she starts to see things, and people start dying. Editor cites an incredible "big surprise twist" ending.

Down the Mysterly River, by Bill Willingham (9/13/11)
A boy and three animals in a very bad forest.