June 12, 2012

Maria's Experience at the Book Expo of America!!


Just like last year, I was fortunate enough to begin my B.E.A. experience at a Simon & Schuster party - I mean, what a great way to kick things off, huh?


This year, S&S absolutely knocked it out of the park with their Teen Book Preview - there was an open bar featuring their gorgeous book covers, authors being interviewed by the hilarious Jenny Han, and lots of bloggers mingling and getting to know the S&S staff.  It was an amazing experience and I was so glad to be a part of it. It was the perfect start to...

Book Expo of America 2012!!

From Tuesday through Thursday, BEA was the most exhausting, inspiring and chaotic three days of my life! I would find myself completely drained from carrying bag after bag of books, only to find this amazing adrenaline rush whenever I'd find another author to meet or giveaway that I had to have! 

Me, at a Random House Power Reader Breakfast that I attended with Wanda @ GCR  :)
This year, I was definitely more star-struck than last year. Take a look at some of the folks I....well, lets just say I was semi-obsessed with, lol: 

Kirstie Alley signing postcards for her new book. She even gave me one for my husband :)


Bobby Dean, Sam Sifton and David Venable (cookbook authors)
One of the absolute highlights of my week!!! I adore David Venable on QVC!!

Rachel Ray signing her burger cookbook - I didn't get a chance to snag a copy since the line went all around the Javitz Center!




But the star-studded folks were not the best part of BEA - I have to say that the absolute most incredible part of the entire experience is getting to meet those authors, readers, and bloggers that you really look up to and are inspired by. For example, this is the second year in a row that I've gotten to meet R.L. Stein (did you know he has an adult novel out now?? It's called Red Rain!). R.L. Stein is the author that most inspired me to pick up books as a child and created my love of reading :)

But here...here is my most favorite part of B.E.A - the part that made all of the chaos well worth it - meeting Kate Kaynak, author of Minder and the rest of the Ganzfield books

All of the books in the Ganzfield Series are some of the best books I have ever read, and meeting Kate Kaynak actually stirred the butterflies in my stomach. Her books, and all of the other books at Spencer Hill Press are incredibly imaginative, fun and just plain awesome!! And I loved that Spencer Hill is still small enough that if you hung around their booth long enough, you'd actually meet the entire staff! They were all wonderfully fun to talk too and I adored every minute of it. 


My haul - about 90 books or so...not bad, huh? I can't wait to start reading!! Definitely enough to get me all the way to next year's BEA!! 



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