07 September 2017

I went to the National Book Festival and it was awesome! Here's why:

Here's a little recap of the incredible day I had at the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 2.

  1. There were tons of amazing authors there. On the teen stage alone, that included Sabaa Tahir, Nicola Yoon, Melissa de la Cruz, Sandhya Menon, M.T. Anderson and Angie Thomas. Here's the crowd:
That's Angie Thomas, author of The Hate U Give, up there in the middle. I was in the way back. She was amazing.
  1. There were two Children's stages featuring authors. I caught a little bit of A.S. King's talk about her middle grade novel Me and Marvin Gardens, which has a great message about caring for our environment. I also saw Ronald L. Smith, author of Hoodoo, The Mesmerist, and the forthcoming Marvel comic origin story, Black Panther The Young Prince. The children's stages were super cool with fun bean-bag-filled seating areas:
Hi Ron! The kids loved you!
  1. When I wasn't listening to these amazing authors, I was in the Pavilion of States, where my book was chosen to represent Delaware. I appeared at my state's booth for two stints which lasted a total of five hours, and it was a blast. This area was packed (the whole festival was packed) with kids and parents and teachers and librarians, all participating in a map activity where ether go to each state to get their map stamped, and also get other fun stuff... including How to Disappear bookmarks! I have five different designs that feature quotes from the book, so it was fun to see which were the favorites. (#1-"It Feels Good to Be Seen." #2 - "You are not alone.") SO. MUCH. FUN.
See what I mean about it being packed? That center aisle was mobbed. With READERS! So awesome.
These lovely teens had already read HOW TO DISAPPEAR and stood at the corner of the booth telling everyone how great it is! I LOVE THEM!
Here I am with Patty Langley of DE Division of Librariesand her lovely niece Christina.
I don't know this woman's name but when she read about my book at the booth, she hurried off to buy it at the store and came back to have it signed. She told us it was the last copy! Sold out! WOOT!
I signed lots of bookmarks, and the kids had such beautiful names, I started writing them in my notebook. Inspiration for future book characters! Aren't they lovely?

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