Book Signing Frenzy!!!

Today was the culmination of the NYC Teen Author Fest: 40+ authors signing at Books of Wonder.

Holy crap were there a lot of people there.

Thanks to this event happening a week BEFORE payday, I was working with a limited book-buying budget. I prepared a list before I went of all the books I would like to buy at the event (about a dozen) and in reality could afford four, in addition to the one book I had to bring along: Scott Westerfeld's Peeps (apparently I left all of his other books with my parents when I moved out here. Inexplicably I kept Extras with me, but it's already been signed, lol).

The signing was split up into three shifts and I had at least one author to meet in all three of them. First up I met Maureen Johnson, whose Suite Scarlett I loved earlier this year. I considered picking up Suite Scarlett but instead chose to take a chance on one of Johnson's other books, Devilish. I started reading it during the train ride home and while I'm hooked. Johnson has a wonderful knack for building characters I just love to read about.

The second shift had three authors for me to get to: Justine Larbelestier (I read How to Ditch Your Fairy back in October, Barry Lyga (as previously mentioned I loved Fanboy and Goth Girl, and he had the cover for Goth Girl Rising on his phone - it's an EXCELLENT cover, and I'm usually pretty 'meh' about cover art. I picked up Boy Toy and can't wait to start reading) and E. Lockhart (so I now own The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, one of my favorite books of 2008). While I was standing with Justine I thanked her for writing a book where it wasn't a big deal that the girls were amazing at sports - so often in books that otherwise try to positively portray women in sports there's some naysayer talking about how weird these girls are. While I'm not at all a jock, I really appreciated that sentiment, and a girl behind me in line noted that we were standing at what must have been the feminism table, as E. Lockhart and Lauren McLaughlin, author of Cycler, were there, too. So the inscription on How to Ditch Your Fairy reads "Feminism rules!" I also thanked E. Lockhart for writing a book where feminism isn't a dirty word - something that's extremely important to me.

And finally in the third shift was the man I'd been dying to meet, Scott Westerfeld. While waiting for the second shift to wind down I stood in a makeshift line with another young Westerfeld fan, so we spent a good thirty minutes chatting about books and Facebook, lol.

And then I got to meet Scott Westerfeld!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He's so awesome. I wrote my senior thesis on science fiction and young adult literature, using Uglies as my case study, so I brought a copy along to the signing. I had no idea if he'd be interested in it at all, but it couldn't hurt, right? He seemed to think it was really awesome however, and so we spent a minute chatting. I told him why I only had Peeps with me, so he asked how long ago I moved to New York, and mentioned that of course I would want to live here after reading Peeps, lol. He also asked what school I had gone to and I told him it was near Ann Arbor, so we chatted about Borders for a minute, since he always needs to swing by the corporate office there when a new book comes around.

Yeah, I'm totally a Westerfeld fan girl. Have I mentioned that I can't wait for his next book? It's going to be flippin' sweet.

I hope the festival overall was considered a success. I couldn't make it to as many events as I had originally planned, but I thoroughly enjoyed what I could make, and really hope another one is thrown next year!!!