Before moving onward, I know that quite a few writers read this blog so it only makes sense that I do a BEA wrapup. Fortunately for me, my “handler” Lucky Lana beat me to the bloggy punch by writing her own excellent summary of our experiences there. I also had a second to respond to an email asking me how DC was — and my off the cuff answer, and why I didn’t get my award (yet) is all after the jump.
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My email BEA summary:
> DC was white white white, except when it was black. what I mean was that not only was the biggest book expo in north america full of religious/children’s/self-help books, but I realized after my signing that they had all the black publishers/authors in one area :( made me feel hella weird.
> I signed about 150 autographs; it was wild. people loved me! probably would have signed more if the signing area wasn’t in the middle of literally hundreds of christian publishing booths, I think it was quite a gauntlet. let’s just say there was no sex section in the entire place and most sex books were kept on the downlow in booths. me being there was a radical act all by itself, not to mention what I was signing. signing so much was good because I only knew 4 people there and didn’t make any friends (made lots of contacts, though).
> my room rocked; it was a suite parlor without a bed so they brought this little twin up and I dragged it over to a bay window so when I woke up I saw the capitol, wash monument, pentagon, all from bed. I didn’t get to sightsee, or dance. I did drink about 50 beers on saturday night and gave myself a drunken crash course in imovie. but overall it was a total success — both in signing and the fact that I was the *only* sex author on the hyooge signing line, everyone was conservative and I think even freaked out that I was a girl who dressed feminine (I was out of place as a woman without tan pleated dockers). I mean, before I signed at the end of the day I wandered around checking out all the publishers and distributors during the day, and I got some pretty hateful stares and engaged in a lot of sex-phobic dialogue with major publishers at their booths– mostly me listening and thinking things like, huh, too bad for you.
> I’m really glad I went. but I missed good coffee, my friends, my city — and I’m convinced that all food outside San Francisco is totally radioactive.
> my plane was late coming home (of course) and I got stuck in st. louis without wifi which is just like being sent back in time to 1996 without food or water or thorazine. I got a ride from a bored limo driver from SFO. that was really cool. I’ve only been in a limo once.
So… why didn’t I get my award? Because I missed the friday night awards ceremony, and then couldn’t find the IPPY booth, though not for lack of trying. They’ll send it to me in the mail and then I’ll take a picture of it and me with underwear on my head or something for you… One really cool thing though: I got an email on saturday from a fellow author who did attend the awards and she had this to say:
“I live in a Maryland suburb of DC, and I was so hoping to meet you this weekend, but alas, it turns out that I couldn’t make it down to BEA today (maddeningly). I did, however, attend the IPPY awards ceremony last night. I wasn’t sure if you’d be there or not, but I was sorry to miss you when I figured out you were indeed not in attendance. I wanted to tell you, though, that when BWE ’06 was announced, some people cheered. :) (This was not common; as a matter of fact, most people weren’t paying attention during the announcement portion, so it was actually noticeable that BWE got a little reaction — the commentator mentioned that the book apparently “had some fans” there.) It was quite a joy for me to be there to see it announced; I was ecstatic last week when I found out it won — and congratulations!”
