TLA Recap

Holly and I had a blast at TLA last year. I was very bummed that she didn't get to come with me this year, but it was still fun. No one took our suggestions for panel ideas, but there were still some good YA author panels. However, it was the enormous amount of cheap and free books and ARCs that really made the experience for me this year. Last year, I think I maybe picked up like 3 or 4 ARCs, but this year, I actually have regular student patrons and book club members to share ARCs with, so I was a crazy person, running around to each of the publisher booths, going back every hour or so to see if they had new/different ones out. I felt ridiculous. It was very uncivilized, and I was embarassed. The last day when the publishers give away and/or sell their last remaining copies, people really get crazy. It was like those clips of women lining up for wedding gowns at Filene’s Basement, except with books. My friend made me feel better, though, by pointing out that at least I was doing this over literature, not something like Jimmy Choos. It was all for the children.

Here are a couple of pictures of me with Libba Bray and Maureen Johnson. Naturally, my camera battery went dead by the time I got Brent Hartinger's autograph, so no pics of him (his panel on boys reading literature was very interesting, though). My face has been blocked out to protect our readers' sensitive eyes.

You can't really tell from this picture, but Maureen Johnson's dress was super cute. I got a free copy of Suite Scarlett because I was one of the first 20 people there. They also had these cute little Suite Scarlett eye cover thingys (like what you wear to sleep--don't know their technical name).

Now I have soooooooooo many books to read, I hardly know where to begin. Let me tell you one last embarassing story. At 5:00 on Wednesday when the vendors were closing, my coworker and I were casually strolling by the Penguin booth, and I pointed out Oh.My.Gods. to her. The nice Penguin rep said, "Oh, would you like a galley?" "Sure!" we said. Then my coworker noticed Joan Bauer's Peeled and asked if she had any for sale. She didn't, but she did have galleys that she gave us. "What level are you?" she asked us. "High school," we replied. So then she pulled out a couple more ARCs from under the tables. Then she sort of glanced sideways at us and said, "Well, if you're high school level, then you might be interested in this," and she pulled out two copies of Paper Towns. We literally both squealed/screamed with excitement. It was embarassing. And we were giddy.