BEA is the Olympics of small talk. Everyone is witty and charming and has these fantastic little nugget-like stories that are on point and end with a laugh. Plus, the vocabulary is splendid. I feel like a JV tennis player from Trenton.
I know this because this year, my second at BEA, I’ve managed to shed my shyness and talk to people. Even two editors of the LA Times Book Review. At once.
Like many of the bloggers here, I’m too tired to do more than record a few impressions right now (note: Ed’s barest impressions still constitute serious posting). And if past experience is a guide, in a few days it will have all faded into one sepia-toned whirlwind. So this may be all there is.
– I don’t care if Christopher Hitchens’ latest book is a bestseller: he’s got to be heard to be fully appreciated. Definitely, if you can, see him speak in person.
– If you go to a panel that touches on short fiction, they will inevitably praise Kelly Link. Without noticing that she’s in the back of the room.
– Tell the publishing houses that you’re a litblogger and they smile and give you books and catalogs and their cards.*
– It takes a lot of guts to march up to someone and say “hi, I’m a litblogger.”
– Especially if that person happens to be Michael Dirda.
– Steve Wasserman, in post-white-suit mode, is still a natty dresser.
– Spotted early Saturday morning, Stephen Colbert was unshaven, posing with a full-sized standup of himself as if to prove that yes, he is indeed Stephen Colbert. It worked: his phalanx of fans prevented me from getting even a blurry cameraphone shot.
– Speaking of excrutiatingly funny men from the screen, yes, I’m sure that was Ricky Gervais standing in the shadow of the escalator, selfconsciously covering his nametag with his arm.
– John Leonard: will you adopt me?
– Ditto, Morgan Entrekin. Now that I google him I see he knows Chuck Kinder. Of course. Somehow, all roads lead back to Chuck Kinder.
– And my road leads away from this laptop right now. More, I hope, more soon, on book expo america 2007.
* Except for Penguin, who will tell you, “We don’t have any publicists at BEA.” Riiiiiiiiight.
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