VA Teen ’14 Festival

My first official “COMPULSION EVENT” was at the Virginia Teen ’14 event on Thursday night at the Richmond County Public Library. Madelyn Rosenberg and the incredible librarians managed to pull off a beautifully-orchestrated and memorable event with sixteen authors and yes, a big brass band. In case you can’t imagine how hard that is, let me tell you from experience. Herding authors is a bit like herding otters, which is substantially harder than cats.

For me, the event started when I got to the hotel in Richmond and found a package from my lovely editor, Sara Sargent. What was in it? The first finished copies of COMPULSION, hot off the press. I hadn’t seen one yet, so I didn’t want to open the package at the hotel by myself. That felt sort of anticlimactic after all the hard work that so many people had put into turning my words into a book.

It occurred to me that I was going to be at a book festival that night though. With book people. The best kind of people. People who were going to understand that that book meant.

I arrived at the library, sealed package in tow, and the first thing I saw was a wonderful display on my signing table:

The library had teen readers make that book lantern and buttons. Aren’t they fabulous?

There was a nice turnout, with a great crowd of parents and teens.  (Yes, I’m the dork taking pics of them from the stage.)

And an incredible cast of authors, including people I’ve gotten to know over social media, Vanessa Barger, Anne Blankman, Gigi Amateau, and Tifanny Trent. Meeting them in person was lovely, as was getting the opportunity to meet authors I hadn’t had the opportunity to e-meet before. I asked them if it would be okay to open my package with them, and they were kind enough to humor me. Oh, who am I kidding? They’ve been there. They GOT it. So here’s the moment. You see that expression on Mary Crockett’s face? Priceless.

And here’s the actual book. Gorgeous, no?

What an absolutely lovely, lovely evening!