tour report (and contest winners!)

Wow. What a great week it's been. The first leg of the Breathless Reads tour was fantastic and I'll announce the poster winners at the end of this post. But first, I need to give you a full tour report (but without very many pictures because it was so busy that I took exactly five pictures with my own camera)!

Our first stop of the tour was in NEW YORK CITY. The event was held at Books of Wonder, and it was awesome and very well-run. What a beautiful store!

One of the highlights for me was seeing Brittany and Sara, two of my favorite girls from my time being a house mom at KKG. They were always so sweet, so cute to my kids, and a lot of fun. I haven't seen them in about four years and it was really wonderful of them to make the time and come to the event. I really appreciated their support.

In fact, that is always what kind of blows me away–how many people it takes to make an event like this successful. The store owners and employees at Books of Wonder, our lovely moderator Sabrina from mtv.com, teen blogger Allison, and all the bloggers and readers who took the time to come and listen to us speak. GAYLE FORMAN! STACY WHITMAN! And, of course, everyone at Penguin who organized the event and attended as well. It was a wonderful kickoff to an incredible tour.

After our NYC stop, we were off to MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA. The event was hosted by the Hennepin County Library and the Red Balloon. Once again, the event hosts (including the lovely Amy) were fantastic and we were able to meet a lot of great bloggers and readers. The questions the audience asked were very thoughtful! And it was freeezing there (and also incredibly beautiful-I'd love to go back again someday). Many thanks again to all those who braved the cold (seriously, it was subzero) and came to see us. (Hi Jes!) The picture below is from lovely blogger looksielovitz and it shows all of us looking pensive. That's what authors do.

The next stop was DENVER, COLORADO. Andrea Cremer and I had a great time getting lunch and wandering around before our event at the Tattered Cover Bookstore. This was another of my favorite parts of the trip–getting to know my fellow authors. Andrea, Brenna, Kirsten, and Beth were all a lot of fun and great tour companions. I loved listening to their answers on the panels and hearing about their writing processes and also just their thoughts on life in general.

My dear friend Leslie and her daughter Elle also came (photos above are courtesy of Leslie, and how cute is Elle?). I hadn't seen them in a long time (they are dear friends from Ithaca) and I hugged the heck out of Leslie. And BECCA FITZPATRICK, the author of Hush, Hush, was there. She was just lovely. I'd never met her before and was very excited to have the opportunity. The Tattered Cover is truly an amazing store and they were kind and gracious hosts.

After Denver, it was time to come HOME to SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH and The King's English Bookshop!

That picture is of the awesome crowd at the event, which was held in the Salt Lake City Public Library (a very beautiful building). It was so fun to show off SLC and our fab YA community to all my fellow authors. (I am sure they felt the same way about their amazing communities–we all are so lucky to live in so many places supportive of reading and YA lit in particular.)

Once again, the panel was great and the audience had some great questions. I should also add that they made us feel like rock stars by cheering like crazy when we walked out onto the stage. And, as always, The King's English did a wonderful job organizing the signing and having books on hand and coordinating everything.

It was great to sign books and as the line wound down, I started feeling a little sad, as though it were the last day of school or something. It really was such a privilege for me to be in the company of such great authors, librarians, booksellers, book bloggers, and READERS for so many days.

Luckily we still have RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA on the 25th of February.

For those of you who are sad that we didn't come near your city, never fear! We signed stock at the King's English, so for a limited time at least, there should be signed copies available for purchase. Contact them here.

I know that it's not the same as meeting authors, though, so if you also want to write to Penguin and let them know you would like us to come to you someday, that would be great! As authors, we are lucky enough to go where our publishers send us. In the case of this tour, we are going to each author's hometown, which is how the cities were chosen. We still have our stop left on February 25th in Raleigh (click Events page for more details). We truly wish we could come to every city but it's just not possible (we would never finish our books)!. But I very much hope to come to other cities in the future and, of course, will post on the blog if anything else is in the works.

And, also, as consolation to some of you, here are the poster winners! Please e-mail me your address ASAP so that I can have Penguin send off the posters right away. And huge congratulations!

Vivien

Ashelynn

Christi

Lindsay

Mia Mamone

Jessica Tapia

Mallary

Kaitlin

Christina

Jenny N.

That was certainly a long post. If you made it all the way through, an extra happy late Valentine's Day to you!