Imaginales, Part 2

The next item on my schedule was signing, so I settled in at my table at the Bulle de Livre. Soon I was signing lots of books, helped along by my lovely translator, Anneïg.

Anneïg and I quickly formed a good method of working together, thanks to what I learned from working with Piotr in Poland. I paused for her to translate a sentence at a time – which I realized later was rather like breaking what I wanted to say into short, efficient bites like I do in Twitter.

Anneig and I looking cool in our sunglasses

One of the artists introduced herself and brought her books for me to sign. She had drawn these delightful drawings inside the covers:

Character drawings

She also gave me a copy of her sketchbook, full of illustrations of characters from my books, as well as other such as Garth Nix's Sabriel and Harry Potter. She was working on the mural at the end of the Bulle de Livre, and I stopped by now and then to check the progress.

Laurence and me

The finished mural

At lunch we joined some authors and festival people to have lunch at the restaurant we had been so puzzled by the night before, Citizen, and were amused to find that it was just as confusing for the French speakers there. But the food was delicious. In fact, we wound up eating there three times during the festival, including at the official dinner.

I met Isobelle, who translated most of my books into French.

Isobelle

And many local writers, including Erik L'homme, who was both charming and interesting to listen to on panels.

Erik L'Homme

Occasionally, when signing, I'd look up and marvel that I was there, sitting next to a new favourite author, N. K. Jemesin, and an old favourite, Robin Hobb. I had to have a fan girl moment and get a photo of myself with Nora:

Nora and me

Other entertainment at the festival included period costumers:

Who must have been involved in reenactment or demonstrations, because from time to time there'd be a bang loud enough to make us jump out of our seats.

There were painted stilt people:

Blue and tall

All too soon the festival came to an end. The closing ceremony was held in the bar/lounge, with this castle cake:

Nomnomnom

Which may have been modeled on this local castle ruin, which we spotted while having lunch one day. But which I imagine wasn't as tasty.

Castle ruins

The festival was fun – both busy and relaxed. I was able to talk to most of the people who brought books to sign, and also sold out of The Magician's Guild (which may mean that lots of people decided to give my books a try or buy them for others – thanks!). I've made lots of new French friends, and really want to come back to Imaginales again some day.