My ALA Midwinter experience ... with lots of pictures!

The American Library Association’s Midwinter meeting was held last weekend in Boston.  I attended ALA Midwinter on Saturday and Sunday, and had a great time – re-connecting with people I had previously met, meeting up with people I knew from Twitter, playing major fan-girl to the many authors I met, and basically basking in book love.

I purchased an Exhibits Supreme entry badge, which allowed me access to the exhibit halls at the BCEC (Boston’s big beautiful – and easy to get to – convention center that I hadn’t previously visited), as well as Sunrise Speaker talks given by authors on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday mornings.

Do understand that there was a lot of business going on during ALA Midwinter.  The full conference ran January 15 – 19, and there were meetings, panels, round-tables, elections of ALA officers, etc.  I wasn’t privy to any of that since I’m not a member of ALA; I attended on my own.

I originally thougth I’d write two posts, one for each day I attended.  It got really long in the roughest of rough draft stages.  So, I’m cutting out a lot of the text and giving you snippets of what was going on, as well as lots of photos.  Are you ready?

I was in a main hall upstairs at the BCEC when I walked past a woman who looked somewhat familiar, you know, a face that looked like someone I’d seen on Twitter.  I stopped in my tracks and retraced my steps  – yup, it was her … Beth Hoffman (@wordrunner), author of Saving CeeCee Honeycutt.  I walked over and introduced myself (maybe just a little bit interrupting the conversation she was having with someone else, who offered to take our photo, and who turned out to be Beth’s publisher, Pamela Dorman.  I know, a little less than classy of me!).  Anyway, Beth whooped and hollered and hugged (I’m loving alliteration this week!), thenI had to let her go because she had a book signing down in the Penguin/Viking booth.

Not that I was following her, but I did go to the booth a short while later.  I was being a Pied Piper and leading people to the booth to meet Beth and pick up a (signed!) copy of her wonderfully warm work of southern fiction.  Oh, look, there were refreshments to celebrate the new release!

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Back-tracking a little … earlier in the day I went to the new title presentations by HarperCollins.  There were two programs, each was about an hour; first the adult titles were introduced by @HarperLibrary (I’ve almost forgiven Bobby for putting on a Yankees cap when he talked about The Last Boy, Jane Leavy’s upcoming biography of Mickey Mantle), then the children’s library team introduced the new children’s books.  I took a lot of notes on the books they highlighted, and hope to share many of them here in the next few months.

In the short break between sessions, I introduced myself to Carol Fitzgerald of The Book Reporter. If you read her blog, you know that Carol is, in addition to being a reader, a knitter.  (and if you don’t read her blog, head over there now!).  True to form, Carol was working on a sweater for her son as she sat in the conference room.  We chatted about knitting, the amazing Windsor Button Shop for findings, and my Spotlight on Bookstores series.  Carol and I had corresponded earlier about her writing a guest post for the series, and had two shops in mind.  Carol, you were looking for a gentle reminder … here it is!

I looked up from my chat with Carol to see Barb Fecteau.  You may remember Barb from our advenures with Jennifer Davis-Kay, when we met for tea to discuss Maud Hart Lovelace’s Betsy-Tacy books.  Barb was with another Betsy-Tacy devotee, who I had previously known only as @ConMartin on Twitter; it was a pleasure to meet Constance in person.

We sat together for the HarperCollins presentation on upcoming children’s titles, then walked down to the exhibit floor, where we visited the HarperCollins booth and met up with Book Club Girl (Jennifer Hart) herself.  Barb and Constance met Jennifer at the Betsy-Tacy convention that was held in Mankato this summer, and have kept in touch thru various B-T events.  Here’s a pic of Barb, Jennifer, and Constance.

As we were standing there chatting, a nice man named Schuyler (from Random House) came up and showed me his tote bag.  I, of course, insisted that he pose for a photo op.  He didn’t know what hit him (nice to meet you, Schuyler!)

I wandered around for a bit, visiting the various booths and talking with the library marketing staff who were on site for the meeting.  It was very interesting to learn about their arm of the publishing machine.  I stopped at the Workman booth just in time for a book signing by author Lee Smith with her book Mrs. Darcy and the Blue-Eyed Stranger, a collection of short fiction.  I took this pic of Smith, and the event photographer grabbed a photo of the two of us, which was published in Sunday’s edition of CogNotes, the conference newspaper – how fun is that?!

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Just after this I ran into Mitali Perkins (see notes below about her upcoming novel), and grabbed a picture.  We happened to be in front of the Workman booth, hence the backdrop.  Her two most recent novels (Rickshaw Girl and Bamboo People) are published by Charlesbridge Publishing.  This pic shows Donna Spurlock and Megan in the Charlesbridge booth.

Around 4:30 I headed to the Birch Bar at the adjoining Westin Hotel for the #alatweetup organized by @dsloanandco and @mitaliperkins.  Finding the hotel was a bit of a puzzle – I kept following the arrows marked “hotel,” but felt like I was walking in circles (or, rather, rectangles); like a rat in a maze, I was finally rewarded with a big pieces of cheese – about two hundred fellow book lovers networking, raising a glass of wine, and sharing warm bookish thoughts.  OK, I may be exaggerating about it being  a love fest of the written word, but it really was great fun – kudos to Deborah Sloan (pictured here) and Mitali Perkins for organizing the event.

I was honored to be included in a dinner celebrating the ARC release of Mitali’s latest novel for young adults, Bamboo People.  Read this essay to learn what inspired Mitali to write this story, which I believe will appeal to male and female young adult readers.  Here’s a photo of the cover … catch your interest?!?

The next morning, Sunday, was the day Atul Gawande was speaking at the Sunrise Series of author talks.  Unfortunately, I didn’t make it to this talk or any of the 8 a.m. receptions (Elizabeth Gilbert spoke on Saturday); it proved too early for me to get moving on a weekend.  I was most disappointed to miss Adriana Trigiani’s talk on Monday morning – we had a whallop of a snowstorm that started late Sunday and lasted most of Monday, adding 14 inches to what we already had on the ground.  Trigiani’s Very Valentine is newly releases in paperback, and Brava, Valentine will be out in hardcover on February 9, 2010.  I’ll have reviews of each of them, but would have liked to have added a few personal notes form her talk.  Sigh.  Così è la vita. (which I think means something along the lines of “such is life.”  Or maybe, “make mine a double!”)

What did I do on Sunday?  It was book-signing city!  I was thrilled to learn that Brunonia Barry has a novel coming out in May – The Map of True Places!  I really enjoyed her debut novel, The Lace Reader (review, Brunonia Barry author event, and our tour of sites mentioned in The Lace Reader), and can’t wait to revisit Salem, Marblehead, and Boston.  The local setting is a definite draw for me.

I went to the new title presentation by Random House, a similar set-up to yesterday’s intros by HarperCollins – separate sessions for children’s and adult titles.  Marie, the Boston Bibliophile, and I sat together and chatted a bit.  Earlier, when we bumped into each other in the Random House booth, she had introduced me to her husband; it was nice to put a face to the name of the person who wrote the guest post “FTC FAQ for Book Bloggers“ back in October.  We also chatted with @AnnKingman a bit on the exhibit floor.

I was excited to see Sarah Blake at the Penguin booth when I walked back that way.  Blake’s latest novel, The Postmistress, is coming February 10, from the Amy Einhorn imprint.  Amy Einhorn also published The Help and has a great list of titles in 2009 and 2010, the inspiration for Beth Fish’s perpetual reading challenge of the imprint.

By this time it was about 2 in the afternoon and I had promised my familly that I’d wrap it up fairly early to be home for dinner with them.  I headed back to the HarperCollins booth to say goodbye to Book Club Girl, only to discover that she had an Avon author doing a signing in their booth.  It turns out that Ilie Ruby - whose debut, The Language of Trees, will be out in July – lives in the same town as I … once again, Disney had it right with that “it’s a small world after all!”

There you have it, my experience at ALA Midwinter … aren’t you glad I gave you the condensed version!?