Sunday, January 20, 2008

ALA Midwinter

I'd never been to ALA's Midwinter conference before, so it was an interesting change of pace from the annual conference. A lot of committee meetings and discussion groups as opposed to panels. The reason I'm really really glad I went though is the Author Forum put on by the Exhibitor's Roundtable. This year the authors were Mary Doria Russell and Geraldine Brooks.

Mary Doria Russell was absolutely fabulous! I've read all of her books and she writes serious books so I wasn't expecting her to be funny. But she was. She made me laugh so many times during her speech that I lost count -- she referred to librarians as "pushers" and carried the joke through her entire speech. And her delivery made it funny. After the forum, the exhibits opened and I went to see if they had any copies of The Sparrow that I could buy and get her to sign. Well, they had advanced reader copies of Dreamers of the Day, her new book! So I got it for free and she signed it. (Bablelbabe, I tried to get you one but they only let you have one and when I went back the next day, figuring they wouldn't remember me, they were all gone.)

Geraldine Brooks was interesting too, just not as funny as MDR. Even though she has written several novels, she still sounds like a journalist. She made her new book, People of the Book, sound really interesting even though I've read it's kind of "blah," so I bought it and had her sign it. No arcs since the book had already been released, but it was half the price I would have paid in a store.

8 comments:

Toni Lea Andrews said...

Sounds GREAT. Definitely making it one of these days...

Hilda said...

I loved Brooks' "Year of Wonders" and have heard great things about "March".

I'm glad you enjoyed the conference and Philadelphia.

Did you try a cheesesteak with cheez whiz? ;)

Kathy said...

Hilda -- you know I meant to but I never did. I had a Philly cheesesteak omelet and scrapple though.

Jess said...

Ooh, jealous! I would've liked to hear both of them.

nutmeg said...

I'm back and just started to catch up on how you all are and I see you got to see Maria Doria Russell (I didn't even know she had a new book coming out) and Geraldine Brooks - though I did know about her new book. Brooks' book is getting mixed "professional" reviews while those on Amazon mostly love it. I'm confused about whether I should get it?

Kathy said...

I haven't read it yet but she did make it sound really interesting. I'll let you know what I think once I've read it.

How was your trip? Did you love it?

BabelBabe said...

i love you for even thinking of me, thank you!!

I still haven't bought the new Brooks, because March was so abysmal.

Kathy said...

I keep hearing that from everyone whose read March. I didn't even finish the first page so I figure that's not enough of a chance. But I really liked the story idea for her new one.