Just back from BookExpo America. Despite the economy and the parlous state of the publishing industry, the show seemed crowded and vibrant to me.
The only other BEA I attended was in D.C. just before Dot Dead came out. There’s no time like the first time. I remember being so incredulous that people would queue up to get me to sign their books. Margery Flax, the monarch of Mystery Writers of America, orchestrated an experience I’ll never forget. 
(Left to right) Ken Isaacson, Hank Phillippi Ryan, me, Margery Flax, Lee Child, Chris Grabenstein, Alex Sokoloff
This time the book I was flogging was Smasher. At the MWA booth I was seated between pal Alex Sokoloff and the elegant Hank Phillippi Ryan whom I’d never met. With Margery and husband Steve running the show, things were bound to go well. We had fun, the ARCs didn’t last long, and I managed to score a tube of the lip balm that Hank was passing out.
The next afternoon I was down in the general signing area and managed to scrawl my John Hancock in 150 books in an hour. People were there because they liked the cover, because the Steve Berry blurb enticed them, because they’d read Dot Dead and wanted more (!), because they ran bookstores, and because my line was shorter than some others.
I caught up with lots of friends. The effervescent Kathie Antrim and I ended up on the same plane. She was meeting up with two of my favorite people, Steve and Liz Berry, for a drink. I joined them and then headed out to dinner with my friends Ian and Lexa who tolerate me staying with them when in the City. Other friends I bumped into included the impressive M.J. Rose, the dynamite Houstonians David Thompson and McKenna Jordan, LA's Bobby McCue, the italophile David Hewson, and the intense Jon Land. Around the MWA booth got a chance to say hi to Karen Olson, Lee Child, Chris Grabenstein, Ken Isaacson, Frankie Bailey, Jason Starr, and Reed Farrel Coleman. (Whom am I forgetting?) Met Meredith Cole whose Posed for Murder came out in February. Lunched with the wonderful J.T. Ellison and her husband Randy who'd been admiring Picasso's Demoiselles d'Avignon at MOMA. On the way to lunch with them ran into Carol Fitzgerald who runs Bookreporter.com. “You have a book coming out?” she asked accusingly. Yeah, should have let her know. Mea culpa. Promised to email her when I got home. Great spending time with Midnight Ink folks, too. Even said hi to James Patterson who said he’d be at ThrillerFest and we’d talk more then.
On the trip I was even taken out for lunch by my New York agent. Isn’t that how’s this biz is supposed to work?
Once home discovered #2 is mad at me because I met her favorite writer ever, Meg Cabot, and had her sign an ARC for #3. “But it says the book is for middle schoolers and you are in high school,” say I. “Have you ever looked at my bookshelf, Daddy?” retorts she. “I have every book she has ever written.” Wonder when I will get out of the doghouse.
I didn’t wait in line for ARCs all that much. However, I did stop by and say hi to long-time idol and singing legend Judy Collins. I heard Judy sing at the Troubadour in LA when I was, what, 15 or 16? An elegant woman with that wonderful voice which lets you know she has lived a full life. 
Reunited! Judy and me.
Saturday night, chum Tim Maleeny and I went out to dinner around the corner from the Javits Center. (See previous post.) It was great catching up. Too bad, the wondrous Cara Black didn’t show. According to a posting on Facebook, she dropped her pink cellphone in the toilet and had no way of getting in touch.
Packing up my stuff to leave on Sunday I broke a glass of my hosts’, slicing open a finger. It took twenty minutes to stanch the blood flow. Of course, that later seemed appropriate as I read Megan Abbot’s Bury Me Deep while winging home. (Megan and I are almost related through marriage: her husband and I have the same agent.) Here’s my comment from Visual Bookshelf: “One of the best stories on the loss of innocence to temptation since Eve and the snake.” Then I turned to pal Maleeny’s latest, Jump. A crazy, mixed-up hybrid of a Donald Westlake comic caper, an Agatha Christie whodunit, and a Michael Connelly Harry Bosch. With ancestors like that, the book was bound to be terrific and has not disappointed.
The penalty for five days away is the mound of bills, the full email inbox, and the long list to of to dos. Back to work!
A version of this post also appeared on InkSpot.
In the meantime, the CPU between my ears is grinding away on a background task – coming up with inspiration for my next book. I do have a wispy cloud of an idea. But since it has a historical setting, I have research to do. On my East Coast trip, I’m flying first to Boston where I’ve made an appointment with an archivist to look at papers and correspondence relating to the people and period I’m interested in. He was quite accommodating even when I told him I was researching a novel. When I was in grad school in history, I used to love reading old letters, diaries, and meeting reports. We’ll see if I still do. And we’ll see if the archives inspire a plot.
