Top Ten Tuesday: Memorable Author Events

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week the theme is Thanksgiving/Thankful and when I saw that Marg at the Intrepid Reader had done author events she was thankful for, I decided to emulate her. I’ve been to quite a few author events but perhaps these are the most memorable:

Aerosmith – When I worked at Avon Books, our publisher was obsessed with rock music and paid a million dollars for this Aerosmith memoir. It did not sell very well but it was fun to meet and chat with the band!  

Joan Aiken – In 1998, I saw that Joan Aiken was coming to Books of Wonder in New York, so I invited several friends to join me in attending. I brought several books for her to sign but I especially enjoyed listening to her stories, one of which was that she had planned to let Dido Twite die at the end of Black Hearts in Battersea but a fan letter from a little boy expressing concern made her change her mind.

Lloyd Alexander – I guess I don’t have a picture but Alexander also came to Books of Wonder and he looked exactly like Fflewddur Fflam, the bard from the Prydain books! I received The Book of Three on my tenth birthday and the series remains one of my favorites. I kept that paperback although I now own a set of beautiful hardcovers.

Kathy Baxter – My dear friend Kathy passed away earlier this year. She had written an account of her first meeting with Maud Hart Lovelace called My Betsy-Tacy Miracle: A Literary Pilgrimage to Deep Valley. It was so much fun to see her joyfully signing copies for friends at the Betsy-Tacy Convention in 2018! She dedicated the book to “everyone who ever wished they could actually meet a book character.”

Suzanne Brockmann – One of the first events I went to after moving back to Boston was a signing for Brockmann in Burlington, Mass. She writes romantic suspense that feature Navy Seals. The bookstore was jammed and several people had driven up from Virginia!

Susan Cooper – It was exciting to meet Cooper, author of The Dark is Rising series at some multi-author event but, unrelated to her, I remember it being a bit awkward. The person ahead of me was taking a long time so I was stuck in front of a writer I didn’t recognize and without knowing about his work, I couldn’t think of anything to say. It turned out to be Greg Maguire, author of Wicked, but I didn’t realize! We could have had a nice conversation about Oz. Oh well, when I got to Susan Cooper, she was very pleasant.

Dorothy Dunnett – Lady Dunnett visited New York around 1997, and I was invited to come have lunch with her by colleagues at Random House (they sort of owed me – I had told the Barnes & Noble fiction buyer that DD was my mother’s favorite author so when my counterpart announced that Random House was bringing out the Lymond books in trade paperback expecting pushback, she already knew all about her). I think the other reason they invited me was that I was the only one who had read the books! That night, DD did an autographing at my favorite B&N in Union Square, which is when she signed this.

Susanna Kearsley – Sourcebooks, which is Kearsley’s US publisher, had a contest in 2015 where her readers could enter their favorite bookstore and it would use this info to plan her tour. A store in Rhode Island was chosen – not very convenient – but I love her books so much I rushed home from work and drove 90 minutes in the rain to a small bookstore in Barrington. While we waited for Susanna to arrive, I learned that a crazed fan (not me!) had entered 50+ times using false names so the poor publisher and bookstore doubtless thought a crowd would turn up. Instead it was crazed fan and her parents, bookstore owner and her mother, yours truly, and the author! I am not sure Susanna figured out what had happened (better if she blamed it on the weather) and she was as nice and friendly as if there really were 50 of us. She had been at Poisoned Pen with Diana Gabaldon earlier in the tour and told us stories about other events.

Jane Langton – It wasn’t exactly an autographing but when I worked at Penguin, I was invited to a lunch with Langton and, again, it was probably because I had read her books (even when you work in publishing, you can't read everything). She was in town for her adult mysteries so she was surprised but pleased when I told her how much I like The Diamond in the Window and Paper Chains! About a week later, I received a copy of one of her books with a personal sketch! A pity she didn’t realized I hate being called Connie!

Madeleine L’Engle – In 1990, L’Engle wrote a gorgeous picture book called The Glorious Impossible, inspired by Giotto's frescoes from the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua. She did an autographing at the beautiful Brentano’s store on Fifth Avenue and the line went around the block. It was thrilling to meet her! In a crowd of A Wrinkle of Time fans, she was pleased to hear my favorite is And Both Were Young, which has autobiographical elements.  She signed my book and later I got the poster of the book cover framed.

Would you have accompanied me to any of these events? Next week, I am excited about a book signing for Julia Spencer-Fleming!