Just received an email from my friend Sara and found out she just got back from what would have been my dream vacation. Wondering about the destination? A beach in Hawaii…a café in Paris…a photographer’s safari in Africa? OK, they all sound good, but this is one that’s actually within my reach: Sara spent a long weekend in NYC at Book Expo America (BEA).
Technically, Book Expo is a publishing industry convention. In reality it’s every bookworm’s dream. Authors, publishers, agents, booksellers, librarians, educators and anyone who can get an invite all gather for a huge publicity bonanza. Last year Sara—who has an invaluable librarian friend with passes--came home with five bags full of books, totes, pens, and lots of other fun freebies. The best part is getting galleys, manuscripts for books that aren’t in the stores yet.
It’s too late for this year’s Book Expo but wouldn’t you like to hear about a great gathering of book lovers, even if you can’t be there in person? The National Book Festival, another great event, happens in Washington DC this September. Let me know if you’re interested in hearing more about attending yourself, reading the story of my day at the festival, or entering a contest to win one of the signed books I get at the festival. I’ll keep you updated as I get news about this year’s festival.
P.S. I’m still reading To Kill A Mockingbird. As a Yankee coal miner’s granddaughter, I’m about as far from Harper Lee’s South as you can get. Or so I thought. On Scout’s first day of school she tries to explain the Cunningham family to her teacher—an outsider. We may not have gentle Southern ladies in my neck of the woods, but we have both “Cunningham families” and a highly developed sense of outsiders. Lee has drawn me into her book by creating a world that is different only on the surface, if you take a second glance you notice the similarities that all people have.
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Jodi M. Webb |
| About the author: |
| Jodi has been leading the crazy life of a writer for over a decade--along the way she's had a 6 foot tall ostrich try to eat her camera bag, rode in a medieval cart built by high school students, and held a super-sized gold chain recovered from a shipwreck. Unfortunately the gold chain wouldn't fit in her camera bag or she'd be writing to you from a villa in Italy--not Pennsylvania. When not writing she spends her time reading mysteries and World War II histories and baking cookies.
She's also working on her first book, a mystery that reaches back into World War II for a motive. |
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