Blue Rose Girls: BEA

Showing posts with label BEA. Show all posts

Monday, June 07, 2010

Busy BEA 2010

This is a belated post (I'm always playing catch-up, I feel...), but wanted to do a quick wrap-up of the Book Expo America (BEA) festivities of two weeks ago. This year, BEA was during the work week, which I rather liked--it was nice not to have to give up a precious weekend (especially since I was moving), but being away from the office was tough, too. This year was also shorter than previous BEAs--two days to the usual three. So events were really crammed in there! At any rate, BEA was kicked off for me with the Association of Booksellers for Children (ABC) Not-a-Dinner and (Mostly) Silent Auction. This year was especially exciting, because two of the books I edited were up for the E.B. White Read Aloud Awards: The Curious Garden by Peter Brown, and Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin.

Little, Brown was one of the sponsors of the event, and we had a a big banner announcing our author guests. Here's Grace with the banner:

Michael Buckley emceed, and David Weisner gave a wonderful keynote speech. And then they announced the awards. First up was the picture book category. And the winner was...

Yay! After taking home the Children's Choice a few weeks ago, Peter picked up another lovely glass award:

Next up was the Older Readers category. And the nominees...

Alas, Grace did not win this time, but the very lovely and deserving Kate Messner won for The Brilliant Gall of Gianna Z. Congratulations to all the winners and nominees!

The next morning, a little too bright and early, was the Children's breakfast. Camera crews were everywhere capturing the newly-scandalized emcee of the event, Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson, who was lovely and funny:

The three speakers were Cory Doctorow:

Mitali Perkins:

and Richard Peck. Read a wrap-up here.

Then it was off to the booth for some fun--here's a standee to promote Peter's Fall picture book Children Make Terrible Pets:

Next was the speed dating. Bryan Collier and I sat with twenty-three or so different tables of librarians to introduce another Fall picture book, Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave by Laban Carrick Hill, illustrated by Bryan Collier. It was a whirlwind event--only three minutes with each table! And it was exhausting, but fun and worthwhile.

After lunch were some books signings. Peter and Bryan were signing at the same time in the autographing area:

And then in the afternoon, Wendy Mass signed ARCs of her Fall middle grade novel, The Candymakers.

And that was the end of the first full day! Later that night was the Kidlit Drinks Night--a huge, lovely turnout, and lots of fun was had.

The next afternoon, Peter participated in a tea with more booksellers:

Cornelia Funke was at the next table talking about her new book, Reckless:

And that was the end of the show! We headed back to the Hachette booth to say hello to an old friend:

And then were off to blow off some steam at Karaoke:

(...)

And that, my friends, was my very busy BEA.

Monday, June 08, 2009

A very geektastic BEA

I'm just back from Boston for Grace's very successful book launch for Where the Mountain Meets the Moon--there were over 100 people there! One family drove all the way from NY to be there. So fun. But I assume Grace will be telling more about this on Wednesday, so for my post today, I'm going back to my very busy weekend prior, of BEA.

I don't usually go to BEA--I don't think it's a secret that the books I edit are generally more directed towards the school and library market--ALA, IRA, NCTE, those are my conferences!

But if BEA is in NY, I'll usually stop by for an afternoon and walk the floors. This year, I also had three meetings with various foreign publishers who were in town.

BEA on Friday is kind of a nightmare--the floor is so crowded it's hard to navigate. And I have to say, I noticed that giveaways seemed more limited than usual--I saw very few piles of ARCs up for grabs.

This year, we hosted (among others) Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci, editors of a short story collection I also edited, Geektastic. They had been invited to participate in the speed dating session, and we decided to throw a geeky party in their and the book's honor. Unfortunately, Cecil was not able to attend at the last minute (she was missed!), but I enjoyed hanging out with Holly and and her husband Theo. We took a ride on the fabulous double-decker Mysterious Benedict Society tour bus:

that took us and many other Little, Brown authors, colleagues, and bookseller guests to the ABC Not-a-Dinner and (Mostly) Silent Auction at the Brooklyn Bridge Marriot. It was quite a windy (but fun) ride! Can you spot bookseller Alison Morris, and authors Trent Lee Stewart and Patrick McDonnell in this video?

The event was fun--Shannon Hale emceed, and I was shocked and delighted to discover that she's basically a stand up comedienne--so funny and endearing. Katherine Paterson (amazing) and Mike Lupica were the keynote speakers, and the E.B. White Award winners were announced: A Visitor for Bear by Bonny Becker, illustrated by Kady MacDonald Denton won for picture book, and Masterpiece by Elise Broach (yay!) for Older Readers.

And then was the fun mingling, eating, drinking, and merrymaking, and silent auction. I bid on a Rosemary Wells piece but was quickly outbid. Last I saw, Mo Willems had the winning bid on Edel Rodriguez's donated piece from Sergio Makes a Splash, which was fun to see. I think Peter Brown's piece for The Curious Garden went for over $400. It was a good night.

I had planned to head out to the Kidlit Drinks Night afterwards, but got sucked into staying in Brooklyn with some of the Abrams crew and some other authors and illustrators, including Lisa Greenwald, Jenny Han, and Peter Brown.

The next day, I was off-duty from BEA, as I had a wedding shower and baby shower to attend that day, but Connie filled in for me and sat with Holly during the speed dating, which I heard was quite successful, as was the book signing, with surprise guests Kelly Link and Cassandra Clare, both contributors to the collection, who signed alongside Holly.

That night, we hosted the aforementioned geeky party for Geektastic--and what could be more geeky than a bowling party? The location was anything but geeky, though--it was in a private room at the new Lucky Strikes. Very snazzy, indeed. And yes, much bowling was had. There was a great turnout, including many of the authors who contributed to the collection.