Although Hicklebee’s representative at the conference was missing a box of books, which meant that I couldn’t have Daniel Handler sign his latest Lemony Snicket book, I was given a book-plate for him to sign so that I could attach it later to Who Could That Be at This Hour? when it arrived. Which it did, yesterday. So, tragedy averted.
I also bought the paperback edition of Lisa Brown‘s Picture the Dead (co-written with Adele Griffin), Jon Agee’s Terrific (which it is), and Me, Penelope, a YA book by an author I had not heard of before, Lisa Jahn-Clough. But she did a great presentation, and the book was only $6.99, which is the least expensive book I’ve bought in a long time. Side note: when Jon Agee signs a book, he also does a cute full-page drawing, so you really feel like it was worth standing in line for.
As I wrote in an earlier post, I’m not supposed to cover content of speakers’ presentations. But the conference really is more than just that. It’s even more than buying their books and getting them to sign them. It’s a gathering of a very interesting and diverse group of people. Children’s book writers and illustrators are not all alike. I hung out with and talked to writers who were young and old, published and unpublished, quiet and boisterous, sweet and sarcastic, drinkers and teetotalers, people with kids, people with grandkids, and people with no kids.
Some were folks I recognized as regular conference goers, but there were also wide-eyed nubies who were just beginning their kid-lit journeys. Jen is a foster mom and a published author with a truckful of spunk whose laughter could be heard across the dining hall. Vicky is a young, soft-spoken rocket scientist. And I don’t just mean she’s really smart—she’s actually an engineer who manages projects for an aerospace company. Tom is a lovable curmudgeon who is suspicious of unknown veggies in his chicken salad and pawns off his snow peas to his wife, who explains simply, “He’s from Michigan.”
I overheard an older attendee complaining about a presenter at a different conference who implied that there may have been some in the audience who were past the age that they could learn the little drawing trick he was demonstrating, although it was clearly meant to be an amusing aside. Her sympathetic listener comforted her by saying that the author in question was undoubtedly talented but could also be a tiny bit of an asshole.
Notice my discretion at not mentioning which picture book author was the focus of that particular discussion. Or who made the pithy comment. I could, but I didn’t. I’m just saying…
The View from a Berkeley Optimist 