Monday, May 22, 2006

What I did in Washington (complete with shameless name dropping!)

So, as you know, I was in D.C. last week for BookExpo, which is the annual convention for publishers and booksellers. And librarians.
This year, being in D.C., there were quite a few political types at the show, bringing out new books.
First the things I actually did see.
A line for Helen Thomas that stretched well down the nearest aisle. She must have signed books for almost 2 hours. She shook hands with everyone in line and wrote a personal message in everybody's book. I told her she was an inspiration.

Markos Moulitsas and Jerome Anderson signing at an autographing table immediately after Doro Bush. I waited in line about 40 minutes before signing started and saw the Bush signing was tiny. Lots of "line bunnies": people who hop from line to line to get whatever free thing is being signed.
Marcos and Jerome had a nice steady line for the whole time they were there.

I passed Mary Cheney coming out of the autographing green room before her signing. This is unconfirmed, but I heard very few tickets were picked up for her signing.

I saw Anderson Cooper at a reception Saturday night. And DeeDee Myers as well. Didn't get to speak to either of them.
But the night before, I did get to speak to Senator John Edwards! I told him I was a fellow Tarheel and that I'd volunteered for his campaign for Senate and for when he'd run for the Vice Presidency. A major highlight for the weekend! Hopefully there were some pictures.

Things I heard but didn't see.
The tickets for Cindy Sheehan's signing were gone in less than 15 minutes. And the tickets for Senator Kennedy's signing were gone in less than 20. The tickets were open to the crowd from 7:00A.M. So that means people were there 2 hours before the convention floor opened to get the tickets.

Other things
Keith Olberman wasn't able to make his signing Saturday. And even the very nice staff at Wiley, his publishers, were sad.
I saw Gary Hart in a publisher's booth. But I can't remember which one it was. I heard his signing was packed as well.
There were also lots of non political authors there. I was completely starstruck by the fact that Gordon from Sesame Street was signing a book. I was in the line next to his, waiting to get a different author's signature. And his line was pretty long.
As always the authors signing were amazingly nice.
My friend Tammy and I shipped back almost 100 pounds of books. Packed one box full on the first day and sent it on. Started a second box. Then we looked at our plans for Saturday and said, "oh we'll be fine with just one more box." Uh huh. Right. Filled up the second box and a third box. And brought books back in our luggage.
And as always I took my camera. And took zero pictures.

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