my signing at LA Times Festival of Books…

or Why Does Los Angeles Hate Me?

so. i decided to head up to the LATFoB mainly because

i wanted to see megan. she had been shortlisted for

the LA Times book prize in young adult for A Conspiracy of Kings–

and WON! congrats, megan, so well deserved!!

so despite the fact that the diversity tour starts

the following weekend and i'd be gone for three weekends

in a row (with BEA thrown in!) i simply had to go up to say

HI to megan.

well, it wound up being a FOUR hour drive up to usc

opposed to the two it was meant to be. augh. the fact of

the matter is, i'm horrifically directionally challenged

(in fact, i flunked the map reading portion of my proficiencies

in 8th grade) and i absolutely loathe driving in los angeles.

so not only did i get lost, my gps on my iphone refused to

find a signal, but i was stuck trying to get off the exit for

a good twenty minutes.

thankfully, i wasn't late to my signing! but i was late

to megan's 12.30 panel, and instead of being able to

hang out for an hour or so and catch up and argue and

gossip about novels like we like to do–i barely got to

see her for five minutes. wah! but i'm still glad i went.

me and megan!

i'm pretty sure she was as happy to see

me as i was to see her, despite the non-smile?

haha! either that or i smelled–it was a hot day.

(i'm wearing three inch wedges therefore the tallness.)

me and ai ling! =D

one of the first groups to show was ai ling and

her best friend catrina. i knew something was up

when catrina was very literally prodding ai ling in line

and saying "tell her!" (haha, don't you love best friends?)

and ai ing confessed they read my novels because she

shared the same name as my heroine. what fun! i also

remember catrina's husband (?) showing up at my OC

signing at BN and telling me the same, when he picked

up Silver Phoenix for ai ling. *waves*

the good news is, they actually love the books too.

woohoo!

(i'm made myself shorter for this foto. =)

i didn't realize until after i was able to get a

signing through the wonderful Mysterious Galaxy that

one of my favorite editors, juliet, would be there, along

with her author stuart neville (The Ghosts of Belfast and

Collusion). we were able to have a fantastic dinner together

and an adventure navigating the three miles from usc campus

to LA Live.

stuart: do the numbered streets run east west?

me: uh what? i have no idea. i'm just the driver.

juliet: there's a reason i'm sitting in the back seat.

stuart: being that i'm not even from this country, maybe

i should stop trying to direct you.

me: so how do we get there, stuart?

haha!

in the end, stuart, the author from ireland, DID manage

to get us there. hoorah! and stuart and i were blog buddies

from back before either of us even had agents, and we

blogged very consistently about our novel writing process.

it's been probably three years now and it's amazing how much

has happened to both of us in our writing careers. it was a

pleasure to finally meet him as he's super smart and nice

and we three had great discussions and laughs. =D

his novels are crime thrillers and critically acclaimed, so definitely

check them out!

and omg, the Diversity Tour kicks off in san francisco

this saturday. i can't believe it's finally here! (and it along

with many other things i've been wrangling with has been

the reason for my blog silence.) hope to see many of you

at our sf, austin, chicago, cambridge and nyc stops!

congrats to simone in austria who won the Supernaturally

and Misfit arcs!

also, check it this awesome Fury release giveaway entry

by the lovely alison–she is always so creative. this made

me smile and laugh!

will post one more time before i hit the road,

lovely readers! wish me luck–i'm so excited!!

currently reading:

Deerskin by robin mckinley