Things Diana Did Her First Day at BEA

1. Got lost. Convention centers are very big.
2. Didn’t bring a bag. Thought we’d get them like at RWA. Bad move.
3. Went to the RWA booth and said hi. They totally didn’t accuse me of being difficult. So that’s good.
4. Got a whole stack of those “little book of” and “little BLANK kits.” Free! Whee!
5. Stopped by the Bantam Dell booth, where they have my picture on the wall. Was instantly set upon by the publicity staff, who are very friendly and wow, oh-so-photogenic. There should be a publicity staff calendar. Was so taken aback by how quickly they recognized me that I became very shy. Me. Shy. Let’s stop and think about that for a second. Okay, that second’s over.
6. Went to the Harlequin booth, where I met up with Tracy Farrell (who remembered when I kidnapped her at Spacecoast) and Matrice Hussey, who, bizarrely, remembered when we met in a bathroom in New York in 2003. And no, it wasn’t because I pitched her or stuffed a manuscript under her stall door or anything like that. I think it’s because the line was so long that we discussed sneaking into the men’s. Got a signed copy of a new Linda Lael Miller hardback.
7. After lunch, the true collecting started. I am now the proud new owner of quite the array of swag, including, but not limited to:
8. Two new Medallion novels
9. Three Spice novels (I met MJ Rose) — signed
10. Three Harlequin romances — signed, including the new Marcia King-gamble, which I’m so excited about.
11. The debut Nightwalkers book
12. A Toxic Avenger novel signed to “Diana, the goddess”
13. Maximum Ride, the sequel to Maximum Ride, and a Maximum Ride T-shirt.
14. A whole little packet about Endymion Spring
15. Here’s the kicker…. the audio to Peter and the Shadow Thieves, read by Jim Dale, signed by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. Which means…

I met Dave Barry! To understand what that means, you have to consider the fact that I am a comedy writer from Florida. It’s like the Gospel.

And I totally brushed elbows with John Grisham. My elbow was right there. Next to his elbow. And we were standing under another picture of him, which means, that were someone to have taken a picture in that moment, it would have been a picture of me flanked by two John Grishams.

Speaking of pictures, as my friend Kathy Carmichael, Alfie Thompson (whose new book about using movies to ilustrate storytelling is fabulous and everyone needs to get their hands on it now now now), and I were going to lunch, we were on the up escalator and this guy coming down on the down escalator held up a camera and started snapping photos, and of course, my Pavlovian reaction to cameras… I smiled like an idiot. Later on he found me again (he was the convention photog) and asked me what was up with the smile… Long story short, I told him all about the erotica covers. I think I freaked him out a bit. Oops. See, all the OTHER cover models are at RT this weekend…

Oh, and at the end of the day, totally randomly, I ran into my old boss from the newspaper, who now works for Ellora’s Cave and looks phenomenal. It was so great to see her again. And it just goes to show you that just when you think that you’ve wandered into the biggest, most intimidating convention of your life, you can find an old friend.

The contest is still going on, folks. Keep commenting at Thursday’s post to win an ARC of Secret Society Girl. Note, this post that you are reading is NOT the post that is part of the contest. If you comment here, it’ll be nice and I’ll love you forever, but it’s not part of the deal.

Okay. Bed time for the tired author. BEA is not for the faint of heart or the uncomfortable of shoe.