Book Expo is coming

I’ve gone to Book Expo twice before, and still I feel entirely unprepared for BEA 2008.

The first year, it was in Washington DC. I stayed at an unfortunately expensive shitty hotel; I had to wait in line as an intense guy checked in before me. I had never seen him before. But somehow I knew it was Ed Champion, and when he turned away from the desk, I tried saying “Ed,” loudly. He turned. Yep, it was Ed. This year, Ed will not be at BEA. Seems wrong, somehow.

Last year, in New York, I stayed with non-book friends in Brooklyn — they provided a welcome dose of sanity even though NY transit added hours to my travel time. (Strangely, those same friends will be in LA this year just in time for BEA. Maybe they’re all bookish after all). Last year, the LBC had a party, and I got to meet more fellow litbloggers and publishers and a logjam of authors. Running late the next morning, I worried that I’d miss the panel I wanted to see, but realized one of its members — Christopher Hitchens — was standing right in front of me on the escalator. I followed him. He was grumpy about morning. I walked onto the floor and was dazed by the enormity of it — or maybe by the heat (the air conditioning in Javitz was on the fritz). I had a marvelous time, sort of full-to-overflowing, all of it, including my bags, with books.

This year I have planned. I have a schedule. I am in my own town (yes, I am here, in LA, which I have reclaimed, by the way). I know when William Shatner is supposed to be signing his new book, that Alec Baldwin is speaking at a breakfast, that George Hamilton is throwing a party. That Salman Rushdie is going to be hanging out, cracking jokes. But there’s so so much that I don’t know. I might even see you there.

About the author

I like sitting in Jack Webb's booth.