Are you ready for it?!? My fantastic ALA experience!
First off... I have to thank Chelsea of The Page Flipper, because I never would have went if her family didn't stop to pick me up on their way to Chicago. So THANK YOU! I'm so glad you invited me and am still my friend even though I stole your books! Really... if you want them just let me know.
I was expecting to be overwhelmed, which I was, but I couldn't miss the opportunity to see so many authors in one place! I wasn't expecting on getting so many books and I wasn't planning on meeting as many authors as I did. For a book lover, it was a dream come true!
I think the most thrilling experience for me, was meeting other people that are just as crazy as I am. I'm a very shy person. When I'm out and about, it's very unlikely for me to strike up a conversation with a stranger. It's unlikely for me to even make eye contact. Smile and walk... that's my motto. Yet, while I was at ALA, a woman was in line behind me, it was the line for Neil Gaiman (which was a crazy insane line... I was number 199) she was reading a book, which will remained unnamed, since she didn't speak very highly of it, but I had saw this book and wondered if it was any good. So, I, smile and walk, asked the woman how she was liking the novel? Then for the next 45 minutes, I discussed my love of YA with this woman, who was a teacher and also a huge fan of YA. (during this 45 minutes that line didn't move at all... needless to say as much as I wanted to meet Neil, we decided to forgo the line) But that talk, that's a serious breakthrough for me! And it was like that all weekend, me starting random conversations with STRANGERS! That was my favorite thing of the whole weekend. I know I'm lame, the books are fantastic and so were the authors, but I just loved meeting all the crazy people like me!
Day One
Chelsea picked me up just after six am and we made it into Chicago and arrived at ALA at around 9:45. We were planning on stopping by to see Cindy Pon and Holly Black. They both had signings at 10. We were a little early for the signing so we did some exploring... and on the way we heard a voice... and not just any voice. It was a voice I would know anywhere because I've heard it many times... it was John Green! If you haven't seen any of his stuff on YouTube you should check it out. So with both of us being shy of course we couldn't walk up to him, so we stood a few feet away and had our fangirly moment. He even came over to where we were standing... I could have reached out and touched him, but I took a picture instead to prove that I'd been right next to him.
We headed over to the HarperCollins booth because that is where Cindy was signing. We caught her right when she arrived at the booth and got to chat with her for a little bit and got some pictures (that Kathryn Fitzmaurice took)! She is the SWEETEST person ever!
We thought there may be a line for Holly Black so we headed to the Little Brown booth. Holly Black was just arriving too. We were third or fourth in line, we had good luck getting into lines early. Holly was signing ARCs of Geektastic, which I don't have and would love to read, so I was especially excited to get a copy and now it's signed to boot!
Since we finished so early with Holly we decided to go back and stalk check up on Cindy. To our surprise not only was Cindy signing, but they had a group of authors! Along with Cindy Pon (Silver Phoenix) there was; David Macinnis Gill (Soul Enchilada), Kathryn Fitzmaurice (The Year the Swallows Came Early, also a 2k9er!) & Amy Huntley (The Everafter)!
When we were in line for this awesome signing, who would we happen to see further up in line... Lisa Schroeder (Far From You)! Another super sweet YA author. I'm just going to say right now, that I love YA authors. We were able to snag a few pictures with Lisa and she even gave us some signed postcards that feature her books and her to be released third novel Chasing Brooklyn! We also saw Sarah Bean from GreenBeanTeenQueen in line too! More about GreenBean later!
After that we headed to the Penguin booth to see Ingrid Law (Savvy). Well it turns out while we were waiting in line for Ingrid her signing time ended and it ended up we were really waiting in line for... John Green! There were so many authors that we didn't know where signing, it was insane. So here we were second in line for John Green. I met a professor and his daughter in this line! Look at smile and talk changing her ways! A lot of times the books were for sale to sign, so I ended up buying a copy of Looking for Alaska and Let it Snow, which is also authored by Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle... he scribbled out Maureen's name. I kinda of have a nerdfighter crush on John. I think it's the glasses. Needless to say I introduced myself to John and got to stand right beside him to get my picture taken.
It was lunch time, so we grabbed some insanely overpriced food and gave our shoulders and feet a rest. After lunch we went exploring some of the other YA publishing exhibits there. We happened upon Simone Elkeles, who I didn't even realize was signing on Saturday! I LOVE Perfect Chemistry and of course my copy was tucked safely in my suitcase because I thought I'd be seeing her Sunday. So I bought another one and gave my copy to Chelsea. I also snagged a picture with Simone, who I later found out was supposed to be finished with her signing a half an hour earlier, yet she didn't turn us away, she even gave us a t-shirt! "Es Un Libro!" Another very awesome YA author!
Maggie Stiefvater was there signing copies of Ballad, the sequel to Lament. Maggie was one of the authors I was most excited to meet. She is just as sweet and cute in person as I thought she would be! She even signed my copies of Lament for me! Thanks Maggie! The people at flux were very awesome! They had a t-shirt that said "What the FLUX!" How funny is that! They also have some awesome books coming out! I think we were second in line for this one... I told you we lucked out. Also while in line, I thought I heard someone say my name and it ended up being Kristin of Bookworming in the 21st Century!
We had some time to kill so we thought we would go check out the line for Neil Gaiman , which we knew would be insane and it was... did I mention I was 199 in line and they only had 200 books for sale that day. This is where I met another YA lover and had an awesome conversation. We also saw Cindy Pon in line since we had been stalking her all day, she's a huge Neil fan, he kissed her! (on the cheek!) As much as we wanted to meet Neil there was some other authors that were going to be signing soon, so we did a walk by and snapped a pic.
We headed back to the Flux booth to see Susan Fine (Initiation). Who was also very nice and let me snap a pic with her too! She's a 2k9 author! And I love the cover for this book for some reason. I just need to read it! SOO many books I need to read.
We were also able to meet Kimberly Pauley (Sucks to be Me)who runs YABC (she was a reviewer and is now a YA author, that gives me hope!) Again we were like second in line! Chelsea was the Teen Review Goddess for YABC! Sucks to be Me, is a very cute book! We also snagged a cute bat sticker too! YAY for stickers! It was getting pretty late in the day, by this time I was starting to feel a little fatigued, but I was still high on great books!
We had a date to meet with Kay Cassidy (The Cinderella Society) but we had a little bit of time before we were due to met her, so we did some more exploring and stumbled over to the Bloomsbury/Walker booth where we were surprised to find Lise Haines signing ARCs of Girl in the Arena, which I'd seen but didn't know much about, and it sounds like a fantastic book! Very excited to meet the author and snag a copy of the book!
The ending to our day couldn't have been sweeter than meeting Kay! Another member of the awesome YA author club. We got to do some book talk with Kay and explore some of the booths with her. It was a great day at ALA. But we weren't finished because we had a signing to go to that night to meet Laurie Halse Anderson and Sarah Dessen! We also saw Cindy Pon catching a cab... we really weren't stalking her.
Other books I picked up at ALA that day (I'll get some links up for these later):
- The Dark Divine by Bree Despain
- Troy High by Shanna Norris
- The Devil's Kiss by Sarwat Chadda
- Little Black Lies by Tish Cohen
- Scones and Sensibility by Lindsay Eland
- Hush Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick
- The Sweetheart of Prosper County
- The Hollow by Jessica Veryday
We hit up the LHA/Dessen signing later that night at Anderson's Bookshop! We were a little late getting there, so we missed where the authors answered some questions, but we had gotten our numbers earlier, I was 140. When we first arrived we ran into Sarah Bean of GreenBeanTeenQueen! And snagged a picture with her! She's so cute and nice! We saw another blogger/librarian there too.. I'm thinking it was Andrea of Book Blather, I hung out with her a lot more on day two, but we'll get to that later. The lined moved really quickly actually and they let you get as many books as you wanted signed. I brought most of my LHA & Dessen books. I also made a friend while waiting for a numbers to be called. Yay for team unicorn!
Laurie and Sarah were great! It was roasting in there with all the people and the doors open, but they still had huge smiles on their faces and were super sweet to everyone. We didn't get to chat with them much, but it was just fantastic enough to see them! And that my pretties was day one.
