Goals Accomplished:
- Met with a new publicist!  Technically two from the same imprint.  Suzanne and Claudia from HarperOne!  Claudia had on some rocking shoes (yeah I looked at them...)
- Met two new authors!  Caroline Todd and Katia Lief! (I'm very interested in Katia's books now, she's a thriller writer, but I really liked her personality.)
- Met new bloggers!  Terri (Alexia's Books and Such), Tammy (Alexia's Books and Such), Jen (Crazy for Books), Alix (Romance Book Forum), Jane L (Dear Author*), Megan (Heroes and Heartbreakers)
- Met my Baby Nicole (Paperback Princess)!
- Met Bri (of The Book Pixie*)
- Saw Emily (Red House Books)
- Met up with Tasch (Bloody Bookaholic), Briana (BAM Book Reviews)

Fangirl Moments:
- I MET JANE L(itte) OF DEAR AUTHOR!  ::dances around:: Y'all you don't understand I have been practically in love with her since like...forever.  I was reading Dear Author before I ever became a blogger and Jane is well my hero :shining smile: I wasn't particularly eloquent nor very um conversant...I was trying so hard not to sound like an idiot I sounded like one (and then I would just kind of smile at her :sigh: ) She's so nice, and pleasant, and reassuring.  I hope to someday be that patient with crazy people like me.
- I kind of stared creepily at Andrew Schaffer (aka Evil Wylie) for like...ten minutes?  I couldn't figure out how to say hello while he was talking to this couple of folks.  He was at the HarperCollins shindig at the K-Lounge (more later) and I kept meaning to go over there, but then I'd be like 'Nope. No. Just don't.'

Interesting Moments:
- Getting lost with Tasch on the way back from the K-Lounge :D
- Getting turned around at Newark Airport looking for Bri (are you at Terminal A?  Terminal C? Are you upstairs?)
- Our hotel is...interesting.  Definitely more room this year then last year, no water pressure at all, but the guys helped us carry all 50 of our bags (I exaggerate, we had only like 7 bags between the four of us)
- We kept gathering people to us.  Our room has 5 people currently, we picked up Emily and Nicole at the Javits, then headed over to the Doubletree to pick up my sister's boss Joan (who runs the local Used Book Store we've been going to since Tegs was like 5) and Jenn so that by the time we made it to the TGIFriday's for dinner there was 9 of us. 
- Letting Tegan loose without me o.o I was scared her and the Briana's (yeah we have two) would get kidnapped.  Or start an international incident.  Or domestic incident since the President was hanging around where they were.

HarperCollins Shingdig at the K-Lounge:
- This is technically my first publisher party I've been to.  I've been invited over the years to others, but this is the first one I accepted and attended.  I didn't know what to expect honestly, but after a little while of being a hermit with Emily we got into the groove of things.  Terri came over and introduced herself (w00t!) and our little circle got larger and smaller over the progression of a couple of hours as people joined us, left us, joined us, split up...
- The K-Lounge is niiice.  Very atmospheric and I forgot how much I love Indian food--tikka chicken, vegetarian samosas (I really liked them!)--I was in heaven.  I also drank only about half fo the vodka/OJ I got (they gave me A LOT of vodka)
- Talking got a bit harder as more people joined the party, and my mostly deaf in one ear hearing didn't help.  But I managed to have a few meaningful conversations
- As I said earlier Katia Lief was wonderful to talk with.  She writes thrillers (under this name and Kate Pepper as well I believe), which I don't typically read (unless Zombies are involved), but she spoke very passionately about her craft and the changing landscape.  I think I'll give her first book, You Are Next a try!
- The Publicist Suzanne, for HarperOne, told me about a spirituality book and superheroes--I forgot the title now--that sounds really interesting.  I like Superheroes so definitely wanna check it out at least

Overall it wasn't a bad way to spend Monday before BEA!  We got our badges just as the press office was closing (and dude that lady at the office? Still a witch, I needed to type one last sentence in my text message and she was like 'Do it from outside of here' I mean really?) and got an early look at some of the cool stuff outside of the Exhibit Hall.


So what did everyone else do?  Nicole and Emily filled me in a bit about the BEA Bloggers Conference and some of the brouhaha there, but what did everyone else get up to?