Every few months in the past year or so, my NY bestie and fellow writer Melissa tells me about going to YA author events at Books of Wonder, an independent children’s bookshop in Manhattan. So when visiting NY this year, I half jokingly asked her if the bookstore would have an event when I’d be there, and they did! I hadn’t heard of a single one of the authors there. Melissa had only heard of/read one book of one, but we figured, why not?
The guests who showed (I think one may have canceled) were Patrick Ness, Robin Wasserman, Alex London, and Gene Luen Yang. Before the event (because I feel weird taking pictures of people without their permission, heh):
I browsed some of the books by the authors we’d see and wasn’t sure which I wanted to buy. Melissa bought one to get signed for a friend. We got seats at the event and waited. And it was so fun! Even my non-YA-author-reader boyfriend had a nice time. Seriously, they were all incredibly funny, and I think I could never in a million years be as entertaining if called on to give a talk. (I’m worried about future signings apparently, ha.) The authors were also good at pitching their books to the point where I wanted ALL THE BOOKS. I settled on buying three… But I wished I could buy them all. ;-;
The authors were all nice, but I was too chicken to say much other than their books sounded great… (And point out to two of them I didn’t have a nifty post-it with my name on it like everyone else–but that was rectified by the time I saw the third one.) Mr. Ness asked if I’d just bought the book there, and I said yes and admitted I’d never read ANY of his books, and he said not to worry, I hadn’t been spoiled much (a fan in the audience asked what she even admitted was a spoilery question 0-0) and he hoped I enjoyed it. The other authors seemed like big fans of his, so I’m sure his writing is awesome!
It was a fun way to spend an afternoon, and I definitely recommend that anyone in Manhattan keep an eye out for future events!
My goodies:
Amy McNulty 
I’m glad you had such a good time at your first book signing!
First Books of Wonder book signing anyway! 😉 But yes~
First book event at a bookstore? 😉
Hmm… Yes, I think so. XD (Unless when I was a VERY little kid counts!)
First YA bookstore event as an adult? (I’ll get this right, eventually!)
Yes! 😉 You got it! LoL Probably even first YA bookstore event or first bookstore event as an adult. It was picture book authors I’d seen before!
Wow, what luck to meet Patrick Ness, I just finished reading A Monster Calls and admittedly I don’t usually read YA fiction, but this book was absolutely stunning, please read A Monster Calls, it’s brilliant.
I almost grabbed that one, too! I went for the Never Letting Go one instead since people talked about it and it seemed intrigued. It was total luck, since I’d never heard of him before! 0_o