Victoria Janssen

My feet are starting to hurt. I planned to stop by the autographing session with Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier, to say hi, except when I saw the cattle-chute arrangement and the vast hordes of people signing and waiting for signatures, I retreated in terror.

I continue to have good luck finding people I know. On my way from visiting Laura Anne Gilman and Christine Merrill at their Harlequin signing, I ran into Ellen Kushner, whom I hadn’t seen in a while. We chatted for a while, exchanged looks at our new projects, and then wandered over to visit Small Beer Press, which was part of a Consortium. I spent a pleasant while chatting with Gavin Grant, someone else whom I haven’t seen in quite a while, and was introduced to Juliet Ulman of Pugilist Press. On my way to the autographing, I ran into Esther Friesner.

Exciting exhibitor booths I found: Osprey Press! Home of all those lovely focused, detailed World War One books I use for research! And I visited the Cleis Press booth, and was able to tell them how happy I was to be published by them over the years. I also visited the Feminist Press of City University of New York, and got a free button with their logo.

Yes, my quest to remain schwag-less has failed. I have one category romance (signed), a Harlequin tote bag (I can’t turn down my own publisher!), the button from Feminist Press, and an ARC from Small Beer, intended for a friend who often reviews.

I did hand out a few cover flats. So far, the response to the new cover has been very positive.

Just a quick report.

I was a bit overwhelmed for a few moments when I first stepped into the Javits, but soon realized that Book People were all around me. I keep thinking I recognize people whom I’ve never seen before, because they have that aura of Book about them!

I visited the RWA booth and also Harlequin’s booth, delivered some free chocolate I’d brought for the booth staff, snapped a bunch of photos of the large crowds of people, and then, purely by chance, ran into a Twitter friend, whom I’d never met in person before. Much wandering ensued, including me refusing many free books, tote bags, chapsticks, flyers…everything, in fact, since I didn’t want to carry anything around, and I figured the freebies would serve a better purpose going to booksellers and librarians, anyway. I did get a free comic from the Image Comics booth.

So far, I’ve run into writer friends Christine Merrill, Sarah Beth Durst (actually, Sarah found me!), Laura Anne Gilman, and briefly, Holly Black. I am debating attending a Harlequin party tonight. It’s offsite, and I suspect I will be too tired and overstimulated to really enjoy myself.

I did hand out a few of my cover flats for The Duke and the Pirate Queen. I have to remember I’m carrying them! Hopefully, I’ll do better with that this afternoon, now that I have a better feel for the show and where things are.

I’ll post photos either tonight or tomorrow morning.

I am at BookExpo America today and tomorrow, so if you’re there, feel free to say hi! That is, if you can find me in the surging maelstrom of publishing and bookselling folks.

My publisher, Harlequin, will be in booths 3922, 3923, and 4023. Romance Writers of America are in booth 3484. Cleis Press and Viva Editions are at 4324b. You actually do have a realistic chance of catching me at one of those places.

You can probably also find me at Muji some of the time, as it’s conveniently nearby and full of Tiny Cute Things I Cannot Resist. If you have a weakness for tiny containers, it’s a place of bliss.

Here’s the event schedule.

And here’s the Exhibitor search page, where you can find the various exhibitors and their booth locations.

I’ll try to post from the conference if I have time. Failing that, I’ll post a report when I return.