Greetings from New York

Of course I meant to have reviews scheduled for the days I was at BEA, but although I successfully did almost everything on my pre-BEA task list (see the bottom of this post) this didn't happen. Oh well.


What did happen is that I went to the Book Blogger Convention at BEA. I count it a success, because I chatted to almost all of the people on my list of people to see that would be there: Sheila, and Angie, and Cecelia, and Cat, and Maggie, and Janicu, and said hi to a few more people I hope to see more of later, and hope to see more today.

Viz the conference: I think that blogger conferences are almost at the point when they need to break it up by experience--to have a track for people new to blogging, and a track for those of use who no longer need to hear "You don't have to review every book you get." So although it was not unenjoyable, I didn't actually learn much.

That being said, I would have been happy to listen to the lawyer talking about libel for longer. He involved us in his presentation--we got to vote on what we considered potentially actionable language from real book reviews. Basically, don't say things that aren't true as if they were statements of fact. Fine: It appears as though this author has not completed elementary school. Not fine: The author is a fascist (if there is no factual evidence the author is). Since I rarely make bold, declarative statements, I think I am safe. But it is good to know that there is an organization called Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, who might be able to help if I did get a threatening letter....

Then I went to an event at Scholastic, in which eight great writers with books coming out late summer/fall performed extracts from their books in ensembles of four. All did a great job, but perhaps most memorable was James Dashner, channeling Downton Abbey in his role as Maggie Stiefvater's malevolent aunt, in a scene from Sharon Cameron's The Dark Unwinding... Thank you, Scolastic and the authors involved, for a great evening!

And today, the exhibit floor and another wild evening of publisher fun...