BEA 2013

Just got back from BookExpo America (BEA), an annual publishing industry convention. Five days filled with tons of wonderful people who love books!  It was fantastic!

My BEA started on Tuesday when I arrived at a pre-BEA party at Books of Wonder (one of my favorite bookstores in the world), and it ended on Saturday after I was on a BEA panel about SF/fantasy with Laura Anne Gilman, Leanna Renee Hieber, and Jeri Smith-Ready that was more fun than riding a sparkly unicorn across a meadow of cheering leprechauns.  And you know those leprechauns can cheer.

You can watch the entire panel here.  I start talking at just shy of 4 minutes in.



Other highlights included the Children's Art Auction on Wednesday, my signing on Friday (So much fun! Thank you, everyone!), and the elegant and awesome Harlequin party on a rooftop bar with a gorgeous view of the Chrysler Building.  Wish I'd taken photos.  Just picture Manhattan at its prettiest.

All in all, it was a great week, and I'm already looking forward to next year!

BEA 2012 Trip Report

This week, I spent Tuesday and Wednesday at BEA (BookExpo America, an annual publishing industry convention in NYC) and have decided that next year, I am going to create a pre-BEA training regimen so that when the convention ends, I won't feel as if I've been pushed through a colander.  It will involve tote-bag-carrying exercises, an endurance test in which I stand for as many hours as I can handle, and an obstacle course in which many people swing heavy bags of books at me as I try to walk down a narrow passageway.

Despite the achy feet and shoulders, though, I love BEA.  I think the best thing about it is that everyone in the whole vast enormous conference center has one thing in common: a love for books.

Here are a couple photos that I took:

First, because I know at least someone is wondering, here are the books that I carted home.  (The sideways one with the title you can't see is a wonderful picture book called The Tiptoe Guide to Tracking Mermaids.)

And here is my view from my hotel room.  Notice the itty-bitty moon in the morning-blue sky.  This view was rather magical, and I half expected to see dragons curled on top of all the water towers or chimney sweeps dancing with Mary Poppins...

Here is Tim Gunn.  Not because I met him.  (I didn't.)  But because he's Tim Gunn, and I totally want to install him in my writing room and have him say, "Make it work," at key moments.

Lastly, here are me and Clifford.  Clifford didn't say much, but I had so many great conversations with so many fantastic people that it more than made up for Clifford's silence.

I failed to take any pictures of my signing, but thank you to everyone who came!  I signed lots of copies of Drink, Slay, Love, gave away lots of Vessel bookmarks and postcards, and had a blast!

And to those of you I missed seeing at BEA, so sorry I missed you! 

Can't wait for next year!  After my training regimen, of course.

Stuff I Did in May

It's June.

I like June.  But I love May.  I love the leaves popping out of the trees, the new flowers, the baby animals, and all the other life-is-great, rah-rah-rah moments.  Also, the lack of mosquitoes.

Some things I did in May:

- Got a year older and discovered the true joy of Facebook: all the lovely birthday wishes.  Also ate a Carvel ice cream cake.  (It's my birthday tradition.  My husband promised me when we got married that he'd always get me a Carvel ice cream cake for my birthday.  It was practically part of our wedding vows.)

- Picked strawberries.  They were melt-in-your-mouth delicious.  And when you mixed in sugar, they were divine.  (Yes, I do judge the quality of a month by its food.)

- Saw a deer in my backyard.  I attempted to sneak closer in a bid to befriend it like Snow White, but it bolted.  Later, I told a friend about it, and he said, "Were you scared?"  At the time, I thought this was a comment on my usual lack of bravery.  But then I started thinking...  Should I have been scared?  Are there man-eating deer on Long Island?  So I am now on the lookout for carnivorous Bambis.

- Turned in SWEET NOTHINGS to my editor at Walker / Bloomsbury.  Yay!

- Walked a red carpet with thirteen other YA authors and then was followed by a marching band at a book festival called Authors Unlimited:

- Attended my high school reunion and did not claim that I invented Post-Its.

So that pretty much sums up the month.  In June, I'm diving into a new writing project, attending BEA (BookExpo America), and watching out for vicious deer.

For those of you attending BEA, please stop by the SFWA booth (#3591) on Wednesday June 6th at 2pm.  I'll be signing copies of DRINK, SLAY, LOVE and would love to say hi!

BEA 2011

I had a fantastic time this week at BEA (Book Expo America, an enormous annual convention focused on forthcoming books) as proven by the contents of my suitcase:


*sighs with delight*

But BEA is about more than the books. It's also about eating mashed potato martinis:


And greeting childhood icons:


(The only thing I could think of to say was "I admire your work." Really, Sarah? Mrs. Brady, I admire your work??)

Okay, so it's really about books. And talking about books with other people who love books. I had so many great conversations with so many fantastic people that I feel literally dizzy when I think about it. Here's me with Laini Taylor and Marie Rutkoski, two absolutely awesome writer friends of mine:


I can't wait for next year!

BEA 2010

My trip report for Book Expo America 2010:

I talked to a LOT of people.

Yep, that just about sums it up. :)

Book Expo America (known as BEA) is a convention for booksellers. Publishers have booths, and booksellers, librarians, teachers, authors, illustrators, bloggers, agents, and others wander between them and talk about books. In a word, it is AWESOME.

This year's convention lasted either two days or two months, I'm not sure which. I walked into the Javits Center in NYC at 7am, and when I came out in the evening, it was suddenly 90+ degrees. It felt exactly as if I'd entered the convention center in May and emerged in August. (Not impossible. You do lose track of time in there.)

In actuality, my BEA Adventure lasted almost a week. Monday night was a party at Books of Wonder. Tuesday night was the Association of Booksellers for Children "not-a-dinner" event. Wednesday was... actually, Wednesday felt like three days. It started with the Children's Authors Breakfast, it continued with exploring the exhibit floor, and it ended with 3 different parties around Manhattan. Thursday included a meeting with my agent, more prowling through the exhibit hall and talking to people, and then the long schlep home with three bags stuffed with books.


I also brought home a quote from Richard Peck's speech at the Wednesday breakfast: "The only way to write is by the light of the bridges burning behind you."

From the context of the speech, he didn't mean burning bridges in the sense of alienating people. (That's never a good idea, IMHO.) He meant it in the sense of making career choices. If you want to be a writer, you have to choose NOT to be a lot of other things. You have to burn the bridge that could lead you to a life as a... I don't know.... insert other career goal here.

On one hand, I think that statement is less true about being a writer than being, say, a neurosurgeon or an astronaut. You can have a day job and be a writer. You can also have one career and then become a writer as a second career, or vice versa.

But on the other hand... Everyone has twenty-four hours a day, and every time you choose how to spend those hours, you are also choosing how NOT to spend them.

For me, the writer bridge is the only one that I ever wanted to cross. And I'm happy for the light of the other burning bridges -- it keeps me from tripping over my feet as I walk across. But I'm curious what you guys think of that quote. Do you think it's true?

BEA 2009 Trip Report (part 4)

Click here to read parts one, two, and three.

Part Four: Saturday at BEA

Slept for three hours and then trotted back to NYC all bright eyed and bushy-tailed. Sort of.

Me after three hours sleep

I visited the Simon & Schuster booth first and then headed over with Justin Chanda (my publisher at S&S) to Holly Black, Cassie Clare, and Scott Westerfeld's Alternate History panel. While waiting for the panel to begin, we discussed the impracticality of Wonder Woman's invisible jet. I'm always bothered by the fact that the jet doesn't make her invisible, and Justin pointed out that the jet is never referred to as soundless. So you have this seated woman zipping through the air to the roar of a jet engine. Not so stealthy.

After the panel, I ran into Marie Rutkoski and Jennifer from the Grand Central Branch of the New York Public Library, who invited me to join them for lunch. Lunch plans expanded to include Ally Carter, Jen Barnes, and Sarah Cross, and then contracted again to just Marie, Jenny, and me, and then expanded again so that the final table was Marie, Jenny, Cassandra Clare, Josh Lewis, Theo Black, Delia Sherman, Ellen Kushner, Scott Westerfeld, Justine Larbalestier, and me. It was a bit like musical lunch chairs. Everyone kept swapping seats. You never knew who you'd be seating beside next.

For the rest of the afternoon, I alternated between wandering the exhibit hall and hanging out in the S&S booth. I talked with a wide variety of people, from Scholastic's Arthur Levine, to a super-nice Massachusetts librarian who had witnessed my dismal Rock Star abilities at MLA the other weekend, to Olivia. (Olivia didn't talk much.)

Me & Olivia

In the evening, I went out to dinner with the fabulous Wendy Mass and Courtney Sheinmel at a fabulous Italian restaurant. I ordered two appetizers as my entree and worried a little that they'd think that was weird, but then Wendy ordered the same thing, proving herself a kindred spirit, and Courtney was later responsible for the chocolate souffle, proving herself a kindred spirit as well.

Me, Wendy Mass, Courtney Sheinmel, and chocolate souffle

After the souffle, Wendy and I bullied Courtney into agreeing to take a taxi rather than a subway to the YA/MG Drinks Night at a bar in Alphabet City (lower east side of Manhattan). (I'm a total subway coward. I thoroughly expect fights to rage over the roofs of the subway cars like in movies and monstrous worms/dragons to attempt to devour us.) After a stereotypically harrowing taxi ride, we were the first to arrive at the party.

Barry Lyga, Coe Booth, Michael Northrop, Courtney Sheinmel, me, Wendy Mass

We were later joined by Ally Carter, Jen Barnes, Bennett Madison, Megan Crewe, Lisa Greenwald, Tara Altebrando, Christopher Paolini, Eric Luper, G. Neri, Lynn Weingarten, Sarah Mylnowski, and many others.

I stayed as long as I could and then scooted out to catch the last train back to Long Island again. I was home by 2am.

And that, my friends, was BEA! I can't wait for next year!

Hilarious Video and BEA 2009 Trip Report (part 3)

Click here to read part one and part two.

Before I get started with part three of my trip report, I absolutely must stop to share with you this youtube video. If you grew up in the 80s watching music videos, or even if you didn't, you are going to piss yourself laughing when you watch this. Via Keith DeCandido via Ellen Kushner, I present to you:

Total Eclipse of the Heart: Literal Video Version



Once you've picked yourself off the floor and composed yourself, please do read on...

Part Three: Friday Night at BEA

Loaded down with books, I waddled myself over to the shuttle buses in order to wend my way to the Brooklyn Marriott for the ABC (Association of Booksellers for Children) Not-A-Dinner and art auction. I love this event. I also loved this year's format for the event which eliminated the sit-down dinner and instead had lots more time for mingling. Sit-down dinners (at least those without assigned seating) stress me out because they're way too much like being in middle school at cafeteria time and wondering if there will be a seat left at the table with your friends. No one should ever have to relive middle school cafeteria. Or gym class on dodge ball days. Or chem class where the teacher thinks it would be "fun" for all of you to wear lab goggles and sing the Elements song by Tom Lehrer at assembly in front of the entire school... But I digress.

I rode in the bus with Betsy Mitchell and Maryrose Wood and had a great time talking with them. I then hung out at the hotel bar with Holly Black, Scott Westerfeld, Lucille Rettino, Bethany Buck, Anne Zafian, and others. After that, I joined Laini Taylor and Jim di Bartolo to watch the keynote speeches. Shannon Hale was witty and charming as the master of ceremonies, and Katherine Paterson and Mike Lupica also gave very entertaining speeches. I laughed; I cried; it was better than Cats.

Seriously, I did tear up during Shannon's speech. She talked about achieving the impossible dream of becoming a writer. As many of you know, I've wanted to be a writer since I was ten years old, so her speech really hit home.

After the talks, I had a lovely time touring the art show with Anne Zafian of Simon & Schuster. I also met Justin and Colleen Chanda, as well as Jon Scieszka. And I got my hair caught on Ally Carter's earring. It took, like, five minutes and three people to disentangle us.

I then made a beeline for the food because I am all about food. I define places by their food. NYC is good tomato soup. Boston is bread bowls. Las Vegas is shrimp cocktail. Orlando is buffalo steak. Texas, fried catfish. Cape Cod, lobster. Anyway, in addition to attacking the food, I also talked to lots of fabulous people, such as Gordon Korman, Kate Schafer Testerman, Maureen Johnson, Lauren Oliver, Lisa Greenwald, Elise Broach (who won the EB White Award that night -- congrats, Elise!), Greg Neri, Aprilynne Pike, and a slew of others.

Afterwards, Laini Taylor, Jim di Bartolo, and I shared the world's slowest cab ride back to Manhattan. (Not that I minded since I was in good company.) I stopped in on Betsy Bird and Cheryl Klein's Kidlit Drinks Night. Saw Betsy, Cheryl, MotherReader, Rebecca Stead, and Molly O'Neill, and then had to book it (no pun intended) out of there to catch the last train back to Long Island.

Coming soon: Part four of my BEA Trip Report: Saturday

BEA 2009 Trip Report (part 2)

Click here to read part one.

Part Two: Friday Afternoon at BEA

Lots of wandering and lots of conversations with lots of awesome people, including but not limited to Adrienne Maria Vrettos, Donna Freitas, Rose Fox, Sheila Ruth, Sara Zarr, two very nice booksellers from Calgary, and Bob.

Yes, Bob, the Bob, from Sesame Street.

He knows Big Bird

He was standing there, waiting for his signing as if he were an ordinary person and not best buds with Elmo, so I went up to him. I was remarkably inarticulate. I'm not saying that to be self-deprecating. I mean, my grasp on nouns and verbs deteriorated and I was left rearranging indefinite and definite articles in hopes of constructing a sentence.

Anyway, after gibbering incoherently at the very nice and gentlemanly Bob McGrath, I encountered Aimee Friedman and joined her at the BEA Young Adult Editor's Buzz, a panel where several editors pitched their favorite fall books. My favorite line: "The stories in Laini Taylor's Lips Touch are hot in the same way that Markus Zusak is hot."

After the panel, I decided to hunt for ARCs (Advanced Reader Copies). Got a signed ARC of Forest Born from the fabulous Shannon Hale and scooped up an ARC of Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan. In general, there were fewer freebies at this year's BEA, which meant that people didn't have the huge tote bags swinging from their shoulders and clocking shorter people in the faces. Bet you never knew the book business was so dangerous. You should have seen the year when Clifford slipped his leash and went all Cujo.

Clifford, Big Red Dog of Terror

Visited the Simon & Schuster booth again in the afternoon and talked with lots of fantastic S&S people, including Lucille Rettino, Paul Crichton, Bethany Buck, Bess Braswell, Elke Villa, and others, as well as Michelle Nagler from Bloomsbury.

By the end of the afternoon, my feet, back, shoulders, and oddly enough that webbed part of one's hand between the thumb and index finger hurt. But I soldiered on. 'Cuz I'm brave like that.

Coming soon: Part three of my BEA Trip Report: Friday night

BEA 2009 Trip Report (part 1)

BEA was AWESOME.

BEA stands for Book Expo America, the annual convention of publishers and booksellers. AWESOME is just a word in caps.

Part One: Friday Morning at BEA

I woke up at 3am to catch a 5am train to reach the Javits Center in NYC by 7am to register before the 8am breakfast. This was early. Really early.

Train station at 5am. Dark out. Watching for vampires.

By 7am, there was already a line forming for the Children's Book and Author Breakfast. I tweeted about this and then noticed a tweet from Lauren Barnholdt with a photo of the line from approximately the same angle as mine. I also noticed the woman next to me was tweeting on her phone. Yes, Lauren and I were standing side by side simultaneously tweeting identical tweets.

Me and Lauren Barnholdt, after a bonding Twitter moment

Inside the breakfast room, I saw Jane Yolen and trotted over to say hello. She said my hair looked terrific. She immediately became my new Favorite Person.

Julie Andrews was the master of ceremonies. When she walked out on stage, you could feel the tension in the room mount as hundreds of people suddenly exercised massive amounts of self-control in resisting the urge to break out singing "The hills are alive..." Tomie de Paola, in his speech, did not resist the urge.

Mary Poppins in da house

After the presentations, I scooted out to the bathroom and... (this is cool so please pause here for dramatic effect)... washed my hands next to Julie Andrews.

And summoning all my skill with words, I said, "Your speech was great."

Seriously. The woman was Mary Poppins, Maria, Queen of Genovia, and all I could think of to say was "Your speech was great."

And she said in her refined British accent, "Thank you very much."

It was a bonding moment.

I then headed out to begin the primary activity of BEA: walking the floor. For some, "walking the floor" means that you go down each aisle in an orderly fashion, observing each booth and seeing everything. For me, "walking the floor" means walking in one direction, spotting something shiny, and veering off. If one isn't careful, one could confuse an autographing line for a bathroom line.

Anyway, I began walking the floor with Laini Taylor and Jim di Bartolo, the author/artist duo responsible for Lips Touch Three Times. (Grabbed an ARC. Can't wait to read. Also can't wait to read the next book in Laini's gorgeous Dreamdark series, Silksinger). Laini and Jim are both super-awesome, and I wish they lived on the East Coast so that I could see them more often.

We ran into lots of very cool people in our wandering, such as:

Me, Laini Taylor, Meg Cabot, and Jim di Bartolo

and also:

Jim di Bartolo, Laini Taylor, Brandon Mull, Scott Westerfeld, and me

and:

Me and Michael Buckley

Also Kate Schafer Testerman (a.k.a. Daphne Unfeasible), Josepha Sherman, and many others.

I also visited the Simon & Schuster booth, where I met several of the fantastic people who work there and saw this glorious sight:

Look! ICE!!!

And look closer:

It's shiny!!!

Coming soon: Part two of my BEA Trip Report: Friday Afternoon.

BEA Trip Report

Number of people that Sarah normally sees in a day: 2
Number of people who attended BEA: 30,000

Okay, here's what Book Expo America was like: imagine that every publisher in the United States magically transported a row of their offices (complete with carpets and closets) into an enormous room, broke down the walls on two sides, and invited 30,000 of their nearest and dearest to traipse through while carrying up to six tote bags each full of books that they swung wildly about as they scoured the "offices" for freebies.

Select highlights from the weekend include:

- Scouring for freebies on Friday with Scott Westerfeld, Maureen Johnson, John Green, and Kate Schafer.

- Scouring for freebies on Saturday with my fellow 2k7ers: Carrie Jones, Greg Fishbone, Laura Bowers, Jo Knowles, and Paula Chase.

- Scouring for freebies on Sunday with fellow Razorbill author Jay Asher (also a 2k7er). (Jay's book is being made into an audiobook by Random House's Listening Library division. He was nice enough to introduce me to the fine folks at the Listening Library booth.)

- Chatting with some of the terrific people from my publisher, Penguin Young Readers, who made INTO THE WILD a reality. These included Jess Michaels, Ben Schrank, Doug Whiteman, Mary Margaret Callahan, Holly Ruck, Meredith, Ev, and Todd.

- Making a total fool out of myself by gushing like a fangirl at Eoin Colfer, Sharon Creech, Jan Brett, and Brian Selznick. (Not simultaneously.)

- Having a lovely lunch with the lovely Jeri Smith-Ready.

- Hanging out at the Mirrorstone booth with Tiffany Trent (also a 2k7er), Nina Hess, Shelly Mazzanoble, and other very cool Wizards of the Coast people. (Best booth in all of BEA. They had a COUCH. Plus they're all really nice.)

- Hanging out at the ABC (American Booksellers' for Children) reception at the Copacabana with Jordan Sonnenblick, Maryrose Wood, E. Lockhart, K.L. Going, Jo Knowles, etc. (Yes, the song was sung. And Jordan made me promise that if he died at the Copa, that I would sit there so refined and drink myself half-blind. This was not as unlikely as it sounds since Jordan's allergic to shrimp, and nearly every appetizer involved shrimp.) After the reception, I got to eat dinner with a table full of awesome people including Brenda Bowen and Nancy Fraser.

- Hanging out during and after Simon & Schuster's Spiderwick Chronicles party with Holly Black, Cassie Clare, Scott Westerfeld, Justine Larbalestier, Maureen Johnson, Delia Sherman, Ellen Kushner, etc. HUGE thanks to Holly for getting me into the party. She is sooooo sweet.

The Spiderwick party was the coolest part of the weekend. It even had special effects: Maureen had just eaten the entire gummy spider in one bite from her spidertini (apple martini with a gummy spider -- tastes like liquid baby aspirin) when the caterers told us to step away from the wall. We did. Some speeches were made, including a lovely one by Holly, and then we all had to recite an incantation asking for sprite-power. At that point, there was a VERY loud noise, fog rolled in, fantasy-esque music began to play, and a garage door raised up to reveal...

... another room decorated with large butterflies and giant mushrooms. The bar was draped with a Premium Saltines cracker sign, and I very cleverly asked, "Why is Holly's party sponsored by Saltines?" To which, Scott very patiently explained, "It's not. We've been shrunk down to the size of sprites." And that's when I noticed the tables made to look like giant sticks of gum, the huge butterflies on the ceiling, and the room divider that looked like blue jeans. Oh, and there was also the Largest Hamburger I've Ever Seen. It was a real hamburger which they sliced up like cake.

And they even had a guy taking souvenir photos, like the kind they take at the zoo where they photoshop your image into the monkey cage. (Well, sort of like that.) Check out Maureen and me with some Spiderwick sprites:

Maureen Johnson and I Hobnob with Sprites

Not enough name-dropping? Here are a few other very cool people that I saw/met/talked with for at least a few seconds at BEA, in no particular order: Sara Crowe, Ally Carter, Bruce Coville, Zahra Baird, Libba Bray, Lisa Ann Sandell, Sheila Ruth, Peter Glassman, Kelly Link, Gavin Grant, Carol Chittenden, Jenn Laughram, Monica Edinger, Betsy Bird, Theo Black, John Joseph Adams, Mary Brown, Barry Goldblatt, David Lubar, Laura Anne Gilman, Andrew Karre, Melissa Marr, Rachel Vater, Anne Hoppe, David Levithan, Jeannine Garsee... and several other wonderful people who I apologize to for not mentioning.

I also passed within 20 feet of Alan Alda and Peter Yarrow, but I suppose that doesn't really count. :)

In the end, I walked away with 26 free books, one stuffed polar bear (from the National Geographic booth), and lots of bookmarks including this one for the first book of Tiffany Trent's Hallowmere series:

Can't quite make out who wrote that blurb? Click for a closer look...

How cool is that! Now I'm not just a blurbee but a blurber too!

And today I'm back to my normal day, where I get to see a sum total of two people. But hey, they're pretty cute, so it's all good.

Literary Candy Land

This weekend, I'm going to BEA (Book Expo America -- to quote Jay Asher, it's a "literary candy store"). I've never been before. It's in the Javits Center in NYC. I'm told its huge. And scary. I'm a little nervous. Okay, a lot nervous.

When I'm nervous, I tend to have really vivid dreams, often either involving dragons (which is fun) or having to pee but there's no bathroom in sight (not so fun). The other night, I dreamed about going to BEA.

In my dream, I had to take a submarine to BEA. It left from Ace Hardware (because Ace Hardware has absolutely everything, including, apparently, a submarine dock). The sub was manned by the cast of "The Hunt for Red October." Or at least the Russian crewmen. Minus Sean Connery. Pity. The crew did speak in Russian, but there were subtitles so it was okay. Yes, my dream had subtitles.


Anyway, I took this Russian nuclear sub to BEA. It surfaced in the middle of an aisle of booths filled with books. I climbed out of the sub and happily headed toward the booths. I'd been told there were lots of free books at BEA, and I wanted to snag some. But when I approached the stack of books (which seemed to grow taller and taller as I walked closer), a bookseller jumped in front of it with his arms spread wide and said, "No! These are not for you! You can only have jelly beans." And he pointed at a giant vat of jelly beans, in which many other authors were frolicking (imagine those playpens full of balls that they have at Chuck E. Cheese).


So I climbed into the vat of jelly beans, which had by this time turned into Tribbles (from Star Trek). And then I was very sad because all I could do was eat jelly-Tribbles and watch the submarine crew gleefully scoop up all the books.

I don't think BEA will be like that. I hope. I'll post a trip report when I return and let you know. Wish me luck and no jelly beans!

For those of you attending BEA: I will be at the Children's Book & Author Breakfast on Friday morning, as well as the ABC (Association of Booksellers for Children) Evening with Children's Booksellers Auction and Dinner on Friday evening at the Copacabana. (Everyone, sing: "At the Copa... Copacabana...") For the rest of the weekend, I'll probably be wandering around the exhibit hall, most likely forcing INTO THE WILD bookmarks on everyone I meet. If you see me, please come say hi!