When we drive anywhere, one of us drives for two hours, and then we switch. Our first pit stop when we head north is always at the veterans' nursing home in Walsenburg, Colorado, where we take advantage of the clean facilities.
Here is Michele. She feels very refreshed.
The keynote speaker at the conference was Frank Wilczek, who won the Nobel Prize in physics in 2004. We enjoyed his talk about the Large Hadron Collider. After the talk, I shook his hand, and he posed for a photo. That was cool!
Does Peg admire Dr. Wilczek? Nah. Not much.
Rick Riordan, who wrote the series Percy Jackson and the Olympians, spoke at the dinner for children's authors. He's a good speaker and an interesting person. He wrote the first book in a projected 10-book series that features trading cards, online gaming, and a contest in which you can win $100,000.00. (Kids these days. Why, in my day, we were happy just to have our own ratty paperback book that we read over and over until it became compost! We had fun with a piece of string and a stick!)
Rick Riordan tells how teaching influenced his writing.
The other speaker was j.otto Siebold, author of Olive, the Other Reindeer and his new book about a little vampire, Vunce Upon a Time. He's out of his socks. I'm still not sure what exactly he talked about, but we were all laughing hard.
j.otto vs. the microphone.
There are two cocktail receptions for authors. Two major book distributors, Baker and Taylor and Ingram, donate books, and the authors sign them. For a suggested donation of only $2.00 per book, which goes to MPIBA's literacy programs, you can get a ton of signed and inscribed books.
Cocktails, snacks, and books: the ultimate human experience.
One of the signers was Noah McCullough, who at age 10 published The Essential Book of Presidential Trivia. He's now 13 and published his second book, First Kids: the True Stories of All the Presidents' Children. I was smitten (even if he is a miniature Republican).
Michele and Noah.
Another signer was Obert Skye, author of the Leven Thumps series. We talked with him for a while, and he said he'd like to visit the store. I gave him a card, and he wrote on the back "nice people," so he'd remember us.
Me and Obert Skye.
We also went to the annual authors' breakfast for literacy, another fund-raiser for the literacy program. We were at the top of the hotel, and the ballroom faced west and Pikes Peak. The MC told the familiar story of how Katherine Lee Bates was inspired by the view from the top of Pikes Peak and wrote the poem "America the Beautiful." He then invited everyone to stand and sing "America the Beautiful." It was really moving to hear several hundred left-leaning booksellers sing the song without a trace of irony.
We then got to hear talks by Laura Pederson, who is the youngest person ever to have a seat on the New York Stock Exchange. I'm reading her memoir, Buffalo Gal, about growing up in Buffalo, New York. It's really funny.
Laura Pederson signs her book.
The other speakers were John Hodgman, the "resident expert" on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and Chuck Klosterman. They're both insanely funny. We accosted Chuck in the hall the day before he was to speak and shook his old cow hand. Later, at the trade show, I asked him to sign copies of Downtown Owl. I said, "You are so cool." He replied, "So are you."
John Hodgman and Chuck Klosterman.
The great thing about the conference is that you can get a ton of books for free or practically nothing. The bad thing is that you have to get them home. We filled up the trunk, and Sophie was resting on her axle.
One day's haul on the desk in our hotel room.
Outside our room were a pond, trees, garden, and wood nymph.
On the way back we saw this sign. Michele asked, "No center stripe? Then how do they know where to cut?"
Right across the road were some horses. Michele suggested that I take a picture of them, and when I approached, they thought I had treats. Just north of Questa are some heartbroken equines.
1 comment:
You had fun! Yay for books!
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