BEA 2013

It only took me a week, but I've finally put together a recap post of BEA 2013! *takes a bow* Well done me.  First I need to say a huge thank you to Danny and Hannah (and also my mom and sister-in-law Tracy) for sending me their photos to use for this post, as I didn't bring a camera with me. I KNOW! I fail at life. My excuse is this: the only camera I own is of the larger variety and I didn't want to haul my mega camera to NYC and try to manage it as well as all the books, so I just threw myself into other people's pictures and hoped for the best. I have to say, all my blogging friends were really great sports about it:)

This is going to be a long and rambling post, so I apologize in advance! There was so much crammed into a single week that I really should have done multiple posts (like the far more intelligent Danny and Hannah), but quite frankly, I was just too lazy to go through all that effort, so instead I've just combined everything into this post. Hope you all enjoy!

DAYS 1 and 2

 Left to Right: Cathy and my mom with Matt Lauer (sort of); The Moms and me; me and Tracy

Unlike past years, my mom, mother-in-law (who always accompany me to BEA and will be known as The Moms for the remainder of this post) and my sister-in-law Tracy (a fantastic new addition this year) got to NYC a full day before the blogger conference. Normally I just hit the ground running and abandon The Moms to go do touristy things while I'm at the conference, but this year I actually got to wander around the city with them. Win.

After checking into the hotel, we took a quick tour through the monstrous public library–it was stunning–before heading to see Grand Central Station and then ordering the epic frozen hot chocolates from Serendipity. I'm not sure how I lived life before trying one, but as you can see in the above picture, I was finally able to be complete after experiencing them this year. I'm not sure what's happening with my face in the picture, all I can say is my mom told us both to smile while we had straws in our mouths, which of course led us to contort our faces in weird ways because one simply cannot suck chocolatey goodness up through a straw and smile at the same time. The chocolate will always win over the smile. It's like my mom doesn't even know me at all ;-)

Day 2 dawned with much better weather than the rain and cold of day one, and while I went to the blogger conference, The Moms apparently went and inappropriately groped a cardboard cutout of Matt Lauer. I don't think I could love them any more if I tried.

In the evening of day 2, I had the privilege of going to dinner with two of my very favorite people in the world, Danny and Pushy of Bewitched Bookworms, and authors Katie McGarry and Julie Kagawa before heading to the HarperCollins Blogger Party. Katie and Julie are so much fun and incredibly easy to talk to, and I'm pleased to say I made it through the entire dinner without saying anything absurd, something I sometimes do to fill awkward silences when they happen. Luckily for me (and everyone else really, it's impossible to guess what might come out of my mouth when there's a pause in the conversation), there were no silences at this dinner as we were all constantly laughing too hard.

Left to right: Pushy, Me, Katie, Julie, and Danny

Danny and I left dinner and headed to the Harper party which was loud and had crazy lighting, but was an absolute blast. The authors and publicists casually wandered through the sea of people all night so I not only got to meet authors Cora Carmack, Eve Silver and Elizabeth Norris, but I was also able to chat with some of the truly wonderful people at Harper that I'd been speaking with via email all year.

Left to right: Me and Cora Carmack; Danny, me and Bailey from IB Book Blogging; me, Alison Lisnow and Elizabeth Norris

We all had name tags at this party which was of course helpful in figuring out who everyone was, but with my awesomely large handwriting and my poor use of space I ran out of room for my blog name in its entirety, so I spent the evening wandering around as Jenny from Supernatural Snar. Way to go Jenny, way to go. *pats self on back*

DAY 3

Day 3 was the actual first day of BEA and brought me back together with not only loves of my life Danny, Pushy, and Bailey (and her fabulous mom!), but also put me face to face with Hannah from the Irish Banana Review whom I absolutely adore and may have attempted to climb like a tree when I saw her for the first time. I excel at all social graces you see, so clinging to her like a monkey was a lesson in etiquette for all those present ;-)

I started out the day at the HarlequinTEEN breakfast where I was reunited with the brilliant Katie McGarry and Julie Kagawa as well as Amanda Sun, Elizabeth Scott and several of the amazing publicists and editors who work with them.

While the breakfast was a truly fantastic way to start the day, I have to say the highlight for me was when my friend Mary from The Book Swarm texted me to say I needed to head over to the Ellora's Cave booth because all the Cavemen (aka cover models) were present and available for pictures. This I could not miss.

 Left to right: Me, Taylor, Mary, and another Caveman whose name I don't know but it doesn't matter anyway because look at his arms

My friend's name is Taylor and he's apparently a cowboy from Texas. Okay, he's definitely from Texas but whether or not he's an actual cowboy is a bit up for debate. He's a cowboy in the Ellora's Cave calendar anyway, so I think that counts right? Right. About 10 seconds before this picture was taken, Taylor had his face in my neck as he was hamming it up for the camera, which to be honest, startled the crap out of me and instead of playing it cool, I let out a very unfeminine grunt, snapped my left shoulder up as a defense mechanism (I'm ticklish okay? Don't judge me!) and promptly clocked my poor Caveman right in the cheekbone. I really should teach a class in composure and gracefulness because, clearly, I'm a master at them.

After the first day of BEA wrapped up I was off to the Macmillan Blogger Party where I got to meet several bloggers I'd spoken to online but never had the pleasure of meeting, as well as had an opportunity to speak with the people behind the Awesome that is Macmillan.

Hannah and I left the Macmillan party together and embarked upon what she so aptly calls the Great Taxi Hunt of 2013. It was rush hour when we left and there was simply not a single cab to be had. Hannah and I were all "It would be great if someone could stop and kindly give us a ride" and every single cab in NYC was all:

Super. I finally saw a cab that looked like it was slowing to let a passenger out, so I took off sprinting down the street and appeared breathless by the back door only to have the cab pull away and go a few feet further down the way. Once again, I ran down the street and ended up outside the rear passenger window as if by magic, a huge (and let's be honest, probably creepy) smile on my face as I began gesturing to the guy in the car to see if he was going to be getting out in the near future. For a third time, the cab pulled away from the curb and then stopped another several feet down the road. At this point, I was getting just plain desperate. There was more running, only this time when I stopped beside the cab my hand gestures were decidedly more emphatic and I was near to ripping the door open and bodily removing the passenger from the backseat. Luckily for him, he got out under his own power and Hannah and I were off to the Penguin Bird Bash and then finally the YA Author/Blogger Rooftop Party hosted by Liza at Who RU Blog and Andye of Reading Teen.

This party was beyond fun and had the most stunning views of both NYC and New Jersey, and I was simply honored to be there.

Me and Hannah overlooking the Freedom Tower and NYC/NJ

The remaining two days of BEA were filled with amazing books and even more amazing bloggers and authors, and it was without a doubt my best BEA experience yet. I can't thank all the publishers and publicists enough for including me in some of their unbelievably fabulous events, and I just don't have the words to explain how much everyone in this community of book lovers means to me other than to say I feel privileged to call myself a blogger and be in such outstanding company.

A very special thank you goes out to my mom and Cathy, whom BEA just wouldn't be the same without. I'm lucky to have you both.

I'm going to wrap up this exceedingly long post with a few more random pictures, and the sincere hope that I get to meet many more of you at next year's event!

Left to right: Me, Hannah and Mary; my mom, me, Hannah and my mother-in-law Cathy; Danny, Pushy, me and Olivia from The Reading Enchantress