ALA MW 2014 Wrap Up

ALA = American Library Association

MW = Midwinter Conference 

2014 = If you need this explained then I can't help you. ;) 

I road tripped it to Philly with Hannah from The Irish Banana, her cousin Missy and Andye from Reading Teen. We had 4 adults, 7 bags and ONE HUNDRED MILLION CUPCAKES in the car with us. 

 

Okay, so it was more like 9 dozen cupcakes, but whose really counting?

I got to spend the entire weekend surrounded by books and book people, some I've known for awhile and others I've only met on the interwebz. Always a good time. ALWAYS!

ALA was my second book conference that I've attended and I can honestly say that librarians and other professional book people are WAY more chill than a lot of the attendees at BEA. Everyone lined up in an orderly fashion and there was very little pushing and shoving, it was more like trying to avoid knocking your bag into someone elses. And best of all, no one tried to tackle me! 

    

The generosity of the publishers was incredible and blew me away! I came home with books I might not have ever considered if it weren't for the recommendations of wonderful people like Christina from Bloomsbury, Annie from HarlequinTEEN and Dina from Disney. 

I LOVED LOVED LOVED being able to deliver cupcakes to the booths! This is something I've wanted to do for a long time but the idea of trekking up to NYC on a bus, or a plane or a train, loaded up with cupcakes just wasn't feasible.

Authors. While there aren't as many as BEA, there were still plenty to get excited about it like Mike Mullin, Rainbow Rowell and Amalie Howard. Tiffany Schmidt, Miranda Kenneally, Em Garner, Liz Norris, David Levitan, and E. Lockhart were there too.

Now for some pictures!

 

Mike Mullin and Me.

Hannah and I coordinated with Julie Kagawa's Iron Fey covers!

Rainbow Rowell and Me. Total fangirl moment!

Me with the always adorable Valerie Cole.

Epic book scores!

My name and my cupcakes in the Acks of the finished copy of Be With Me by J. Lynn.

Funny story about this picture...

Me: *smiles* Will you be giving away any copies of Be With Me?

Harper Collins': No.

Me: But these are in the book. *holds up container of cupcakes*

HC: No.
Me: Grabs copy, flips to back and points to the page. This is me! *grins excitedly*

HC: *eyes my badge* No.

Me: Well, want a cupcake anyway? They're the flavors from th---"

HC: No.

Me: *takes cupcakes and leaves* ;) 

Some more fun pictures...

 This happened while we were inside the convention center.

When ALA was over, some of us felt like this...

Photo credit: Hannah

 And some of us still had enough energy and to act a fool...(I blame the lack of caffeine.)

Photo credit: Hannah

But soon enough it was time to head home and because we hadn't seen enough snow already, it made another appearance.

 The "Caution" sign was already there and so appropriate. :)

 The car.

Really, is seeing out the back window THAT important?

Or seeing the person next to you? 

 Homeward bound!




 Book Haul

I don't know if I'll do a giveaway like I had originally planned too. 

Why not? Well, because of some uncool stuff that went down this weekend via the Internet. 

All conferences and signings I go to are on my own dime. (Like all the other book people I know.) And giveaways are no different unless sponsored by an author or Publisher. They cost money, sometimes a lot depending on where in the U.S.A. they're going.

So when a total stranger accuses me of being selfish/unfair/mean for posting pictures of the books, pictures well meaning friends asked me to post, it kind of puts a damper on things. 

In fact, it kinda makes me want to build a fortress out of all my books and disappear into it. 
Like this one...

Image found on Google

On a positive note, some of the books have already been mailed off to bookish friends and a huge amount have been allocated to my local library. 
The rest I plan to read.