Third and Final (for me) Day at BEA

My third and last day at BEA started off with the Children’s Book and Author Breakfast which was hosted by Chris Colfer, otherwise known as Kurt from Glee. The other authors who spoke were John Green, Lois Lowry and Kadir Nelson. My primary reason for attending the breakfast to hear Chris Colfer speak so I’m going to focus on his remarks. He has a children’s book coming out in July called The Land of Stories: The Wishing Well.

Chris spoke about how he has been writing and illustrating this book since he was ten years old. He even showed slides of drawings he had done for the book in elementary school and then the same drawing as redone and interpreted by the book’s illustrator, Brandon Dorman. I thought it was really neat that this was not just a book Chris had written to capitalize on his celebrity status but a real life long dream of his fulfilled.

After breakfast, it was another long day of trolling booths and meeting with authors and publicists. I had my picture taken with Tim Gunn for my mother’s sake – she loves him a lot.

I had David Thorne sign his new book, I’ll Go Home Then, It’s Warm and Has Chairs. The Unpublished Emails. for my husband. I told him that my husband is also a graphic designer so he really enjoys David’s emails about people wanting free graphic design work and of course the Missing Missy poster. (I still cry with laughter every time I read it.) David said that a lot of designers liked his first book; he did not seem taken by my gushing. His inscription reads, “To Travis, Sorry about writing in your book. David Thorne.” He’s crotchety but I love him anyway.

I also got signed copies of Naomi Wolf’s new book Vagina, which comes out in September (and just mentioning it here is going to get me all kinds of nasty spam. You should have seen all the disgusting spam comments I got when I reviewed Winter’s Bone) and Jonathon Tropper’s new book One Last Thing Before I Go, which comes out in August. And lots of other good stuff too – I need to hole up in a cave for a week by myself and just read, read, read.