Ok, you’ve been waiting for the juicy details of my weekend at Book Expo America…..
It was AWESOME! I met tons of cool and interesting people: authors, teachers, librarians, publicists — lots of industry folk. I told them all about The Rock and the River, and I collected bunches of books and information in exchange. At BEA, publishers give out books and galleys (advanced copies) like candy.
Check out my haul: a whopping 74 books!
Lugging all that home was not a pretty picture. Luckily it was a three-day conference. Luckily, too, it was in my town, so I didn’t have to pay for any shipping.
I even got my hands on the highly anticipated, highly coveted galley of Catching Fire, the sequel to Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games. Yum. Cannot wait to dive into that one!
I’ll post later to highlight more of the books I managed to snag. The concept of receiving advance galleys may have spoiled me for ever again waiting until the books I want to read actually hit shelves. Sigh.
I met a few writers who I’ve been reading since I was a teen myself, and picked up copies of their latest books — Sharon Draper (Sassy), Walter Dean Myers (RIOT), and Katherine Paterson (The Day of the Pelican). 
I also met some favorites who I’ve discovered as an adult — Sara Zarr (Once Was Lost), Scott Westerfeld (Leviathan – a fellow Aladdin author!), Elizabeth Scott, Michelle Knudsen (The Dragon of Trelian) and Elizabeth Bluemle (Dogs on the Bed).
S&S didn’t have The Rock and the River on display (so I brought my own promotion materials!), but as I was wandering around the expo, I noticed that the publisher of my non-fiction books had a display up that included some of my titles. Very cool!
My close friend and colleague Bethany Hegedus was signing copies of Between Us Baxters. She looked awesome at the tall signing table where they seated her. Every last book got snagged up. She was in demand!
I blog at CHICKS ROCK! on Mondays, so take a look over there to read about my dazzling encounter with Olivia, star of the picture book OLIVIA, by Ian Falconer. I won’t deny it — it was a highlight of the whole weekend.All in all, the Book Expo was a wonderful and dynamic event. I was thrilled to be a part of all that book-walking, book-talking action!