Bright and early Friday morning (ok, the bright part being a hyperbole for what the sky looks like at 3 am), I made my way to the airport to hop a plane to sunny San Diego. The plans for the day were to get into town early in order to get some fun in before working the exhibition floor. We landed without any issue in San Diego at 9:30 am and I was on my way to the hotel. As usual, I stayed with my partner in crime Abby who always has to take care of me during these things. Fortunately this time I remembered everything I needed so there was no care taking necessary, which I think was a huge relief to Abby. Also, for those who will inevitably ask, the books I read on the flight out were Michael Northrop’s Trapped and Elizabeth Woods’s Choker.

If I were to encapsulate the entire experience in just few words, I would have to say it was cross-platform and multidimensional. It was such a blast to be somewhere in person and be able to talk about it on the web, too. Sharing what was happening with those who weren’t there and hearing their feedback/comments was really exciting.

But on to the fun!

Since I got in so early, I met up with Drea and Katie to check into the conference and then do a little exploring. We hit up a local pizza shop and talked about blogging, books, and the people we love. Drea and I have hung out before (since she lives close by) but it was my first time meeting Katie. Lots of fun was had. I had to rush back to my hotel shortly after, though, because I had another event coming up in the early afternoon.

I made a date with Melissa Wiley weeks ago to take a special trip to celebrate our work on the Cybils YA panel. We’d met previously at KidLitCon but didn’t get to connect much because of other things going on, so we were excited to have some one-on-one bonding time. Now, if you’ve read the synchronicities posts, you’re privy to the fact In-and-Out Burger plays a part in two of our titles. Naturally, that’s where we decided to go. But it was Melissa who pulled out the big surprise — she brought the two books that feature that restaurant.

When we got to the restaurant, we took a photo of our books with our food, then we were able to convince a stranger to get a shot of us together with the books. After Melissa and I tweeted the picture, we heard back from both Tara Kelly and Morgan Matson about our hijinks. It was epic feedback, if you will. As dorky as it sounds, that was definitely one of the highlights of my trip to San Diego. It really brought a whole new level to what we were doing on the panel. We talked our favorite Cybils titles, non-Cybils titles, the importance of good voice in writing, and we talked about the fact she’s just sold not only a middle grade title this year but just got word she sold a YA historical fiction. Melissa is a wonderful person and I am so glad I got to spend time with her.

Also, that was the first hamburger I’ve eaten in about 4 years, too, and it was so worth the wait.

Melissa dropped me back at the hotel, where I had a little time to relax before meeting up with Angie, Liz, Sarah, Abby, Drea, and Katie to hit the exhibit floor. Anyone who has been to a book-related conference knows how these things go — it’s a madhouse. As a group, we’d developed a list of some of the titles we were really hoping to find, and I was beyond thrilled to get everything on my personal list (as well as a ton of new-to-me titles).

Wandering the floor here was such a different experience for me than it has been in the past. Before, I never felt confident enough to actually talk to the vendors, but this year, I did it and it was so worthwhile. At each booth, I learned about in-house favorites, new trends that they’ve seen, and picked up books that were otherwise not lying in piles. I’ve always been afraid to ask weird questions or come off as awkward when striking up conversations, but doing it was so important and really gave me the feel I know what I’m talking about (sometimes). I guess, too, I underestimated how eager they are to engage in conversation with you, especially if they “know” you. Perhaps that was best depiction of this was my incredible interaction with Laura at the HarperCollins booth: when she saw my Twitter name, she JUMPED UP AND DOWN in excitement to chat. We’d talked before on Twitter but missed talking with each other at KidLitCon, so it was great to hear about titles she was excited about. She also did me a huge favor and tracked down Suzanne Young’s forthcoming A Need So Beautiful, which I was then able to snap a photo of and show Suzanne. We got to be giddy about that via Twitter and on the exhibit hall floor (because my partners in crime were getting a huge kick out of this, too).

I ran into another author I’d been real eager to meet, Keren David, who had the most delightful British accent. She came to ALA from England to sign her book When I Was Joe, which I’d read for the Cybils. I was able to get a copy of the companion to it and am so excited to read it. She was even kind enough to come to our party later in the evening.

But perhaps the most fun part of the exhibit all floor the first night — aside from hauling away a lot of great titles — was when Abby and I went to meet Lauren Myracle and I started a trend that’s sure to take the book world by storm. We both made trips to our hotel room when the exhibit hall was open on Friday night to load and unload books, and Abby picked up Myracle’s Shine earlier than me. I waited in a very short line to have Lauren sign my book and Abby waited with me. When we got to her, she signed my book after a nice discussion of how Abby and I looked like sisters (a theme you’ll see in my next post, too).

Abby was ready to leave since the hall was closing, but Lauren really wanted to sign a book for her. Abby insisted that she had one already and she was all set, but I suggested she have Lauren sign her hand. . . or her fingernails. Lauren got this crazy smirk on her face and was totally game on it. Abby plopped her hands down and we were on. The Abrams vendor thought this was hilarious, as did Lauren, so we snapped a photo with Lauren’s phone to remember it forever. What a cool chick!

We closed down the exhibits with that and made our way back to the hotel to check out our books. Between us we had an easy 80 some books. We piled them up, pet them, and drooled for a while. Choosing what to read first was going to be rough.

And ah! Now it was time for our party to begin.

As you know, Abby and I (as well as a few others) brainstormed this idea to have a blogger slumber party at the conference. We’d all known each other from blogging but only a few of us had ever hung out in person. We figured this would be a perfect way to do it. Well, it exploded. There was so much interest, we decided to hold it at a bar and make it an evening. Word got around, and then we found out there would be authors in attendance, then a publisher who was interested in helping pay for the event. And so you have the YA Librarian/Book Blogger Meet Up. I cannot express in words how much fun it was nor how much I want to thank each and every person for coming!

We dressed up and made our way down to the bar, where we met up with Jim of Baen Books and had our little area of the bar reserved. I’d spotted the folks from Flux earlier and brought them over to join us. It was so fun meeting Brent Hartinger, Rebecca Fjelland Davis, and Sarah Stevenson. Brent and I shared an excellent conversation about why YA books matter so much — talk about a wonderfully down to earth person with complete passion for what he’s writing and doing. Rebecca and I bonded over some cured meats and bread later on in the event, and we may or may not have talked about Jersey Shore.

For me, the meat of this was meeting and chatting causally with some of *my* blogging librarian heroes, including Sarah (who may have been the first book blog I ever read), Liz, and Whitney. I also had the chance to meet Julia, who I knew through a girl I went to graduate school with AND through a completely random livejournal fan group. It is weird when your strange fetishes catch up with you so much you bond with people over them in real life. No, I won’t be sharing what this interest is.

At the highest point, I believe there were easily 30 people in attendance. Everyone was good about passing out business cards, too, which means I can direct you to both Jordyn and Anni, who were new to me. It was a wonderful group of attendees, and everyone was able to drink to merriment. Like with all social events, a huge part of the success in something like this is everyone putting themselves out there and being willing to feel awkward. It can be hard to come chat with people you don’t know or haven’t met, but I think everyone felt comfortable enough to do so. Of course, a couple of cocktails help, too. A huge thank you to Baen Books for offering us some cash for this AND for the best comment of the evening — that this was money better spent than an advertisement in a major library publication.

Woah.

Abby and I retreated to our rooms about midnight (note I had been up for something like 40 hours at this point) and were on the hunt for pizza. Unfortunately, there aren’t major pizza distributors in such a ritzy part of San Diego and instead, we crashed in preparation of a full, exciting day on Saturday. That is, after we spent a little more time smelling and touching the books in our room.