Roundtable (& a Giveaway)
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to go to the Algonquin Hotel in New York for a Publishing Roundtable meeting. Authors, marketing professionals, book bloggers, critics, and editors met for lunch and pub talk. Bethanne Patrick organized the event, along with Erin McHugh, while Melissa Klug contributed lots of swag. It was my first Tweet-Up (twitter meet-up) and I can't say enough about the lovely, smart, fantastically bookish people I met there.
Aside from the opportunity to meet Twitter friends in person to make real connections, the best thing about the Roundtable was the passion each person in the room had for books. Whether discussing paper or digital, romance or historical, classics or contemporary the room was saturated with love for books and reading, and the desire to inspire that in others. I don't want to get too sentimental, but the positive energy for books was contagious and uplifting. It was the perfect antidote to the current dismal mood in publishing. I'm so grateful to Bethanne and all of those who had a part in organizing the event, and I hope to attend more in the future.
To spread some of the joy (and swag) and to support Bethanne's great push for reading (#fridayreads on Twitter) I'm going to give away* two of the beautiful, leather bound journals Melissa brought. All you have to do is tell me the book you are currently reading (or intend to read) in the comments section. If you can write a sentence or two about the book, all the better. I'll announce the winners on Tuesday.
Happy Reading! 
(*Winners will be chosen by the highly scientific paper-in-hat method.)
