BEA was a surreal experience for me, largely due to the fact that as soon as I arrived at the Expo my eyeglasses broke, so all weekend long it looked like I had used Vaseline for eye drops. I got to meet and hang out with some incredible people, and the best part of the weekend was seeing (not seeing?) people actually lining up to get a signed galley copy of Ghost Medicine.
We ended up giving out every copy the Feiwel & Friends people brought with them, and even had to turn people away. Hopefully, we'll bring more to the ALA conference in Anaheim at the end of this month.
Big highlights of the weekend for me (in no particular order):
1) Getting to sit down and chat with my amazing agent, Laura Rennert, whom I haven't seen in a long time (and finally meeting agent Jennifer Jaeger, who was so positive and encouraging... and asked for a signed copy of Ghost Medicine)
2) Elizabeth Fithian's "Red Macmillan" drinks. I think they were 99% caffeine because I could not get to sleep that night. But maybe it was all the excitement from the day.
3) Jean Feiwel's incredible dinner at Asia de Cuba... and she swears she cooked it herself.
4) Kicking it with the "Friends." As Lewis Buzbee told me, there is a good reason why Feiwel & Friends has that particular name. What a great bunch of people... I am so fortunate to know them.
5) Liz Szabla, Lewis, and me sharing pictures of our kids at dinner. Makes me realize there's hope for the future of humankind, after all.
6) Realizing that someone just asked me (me?) for my autograph.
I was so wiped out when I got back home on Sunday afternoon that it felt like I had to sleep for two days just to recuperate, and now that I have, it's going to be back to the topic at hand and our little experiment with boys and reading. We are in the process of developing curriculum and lesson plans to accompany Ghost Medicine, and as soon as that's available (and has been tried out), we'll put it on the website... so look for that during the summer.
