Wrappin' Up and Shippin' Out

Let's catch up on the rest of the weekend... yeah? 

Thursday night after I posted my blog, Pam, Sherry, and I went out to Pizano's for dinner, where we had delicious pizza and the most fantastic waiter ever. He told us to call him Uncle Chach, and he was friendly, charismatic, and a total riot! 

I asked for a picture - he obliged "only if I had a beautiful woman like yourself standing next to me."  

Chach gave us FREE DESSERT, too, which has added him to my list of totally amazing people. He was so nice to us, saying that the world needed more people like us - writers and publishers of books.

His secret ingredient was cinnamon... A cookie, ice cream, and whipped cream delicacy!

My boss, Pam, was sitting in Oprah's favorite seat in the restaurant - sacred ground!

Friday dawned, cold and cloudy, and I made my way to Starbucks, where I stood in the longest line ever for a caramel macchiato. Being that it was the closest Starbucks to the hotel hosting the conference, it seems like everyone descended upon it at once, and the poor baristas had their hands full! By 9, I was down in the basement room again, reorganizing and straightening books like the good intern I am!

Pam and Sherry arrived at about 9:30 ("Oh! So glad that you're already here!") and Sherry wandered off and came back with THIS: The world's greatest mug!

This competes with my Mr Darcy mug for favorite mug! (Click the link to see! I found the Mr Darcy mug in Chawton, when I visited Jane Austen's house.)

Sherry realized that I liked to write, and so she went around and found contests for me. There were a number of tables that were having prose and poem contests that they would publish if they liked the entries. 

I wrote a 100-word prose entry on my favorite defunct object (I wrote about floppy disks in the style of a textbook or documentary about ancient technology) and a demi-Sonnet (7 lines as opposed to 14) and wrote a little poem. I really liked my prose entry, so I hope that I win! It'd be awesome to see that published online.

I don't think I'm all that great at poetry, but here's my entry for that! (click to embiggen. It's called Vows of Ink)

It's in iambic pentameter, too. Because, really, is there any other way to write a sonnet? And like a Shakespearean sonnet, there isn't necessarily a rhyme scheme, but it goes ABCDEFG, and the G line is the volta, where the change is in the poem, "Thank God I only have a pencil here".)

At the end of the day, we had an author reading in the Palmer House Hilton, which is one of the oldest hotels in Chicago. We had a beautiful room set up, and the authors were very interesting to listen to! I stood outside and chatted with some of them for quite a while, drinking the free wine and abusing the cheese selection. 

Apparently, Pr. Obama likes this room, too. They said this is where he waits before he does anything official in Chicago!

Friday's haul was not as plentiful as Thursday's but I was a little more selective of what swag I wanted to bring home. I found some great journal-type books, some hilarious satirical reads (by Idiot's Books, which was the only company I was even tempted to subscribe to. They send out 6 books a year, and I want ALL of them!) and I got two of the "Write like a motherfucker" mugs, one for me (of course!) and one for my dear friend Ally.

 Saturday morning began bright and early (again) with me drinking Emergen-C out of a stemless wine glass (I am just as classy as my hotel room) and three further cups of coffee. The Starbucks line was shorter, but not by much!

#classy

I went around and took more photos of the various exhibition halls, because it's pretty hard to appreciate the scope of the bookfair from merely describing it.

There were well over 500 tables and 100 booths to visit, and I feel like I at least glanced at most of them. I'd say I stopped to chat with maybe 250 tables and booths? It was delightful to meet so many people from all over the world!

The Southwest Exhibition hall was where I lived. In row H, table 2. (I remembered it by thinking of the formula for water: H2O)

Toward the end of the day on Saturday, a group of people tried to liven up the scene (which was desperately zombielike at the time - by 2pm on Saturday, everyone had only blank, glazed stares to offer customers) by doing The Human MicroPoem. They would stand and shout the poem, 3 or 4 words at a time, and the crowd would repeat them.

The woman who started it had the most awesome tshirt on.

Another guy had cue cards, which he discarded as the crowd read them. Here's a video! (Only 20 seconds) 

By 4 on Saturday, Pam, Sherry, and I were totally beat. We packed up and left early, seeing that a lot of other tables were doing the same. We were required to get out of there by 5:30, so it wasn't a problem! 

I spent Saturday trying to scour the place for good book deals - a lot of tables were giving away books they had previously charged for, or were giving a heavily discounted rate ("$3 books? YES PLEASE.) So Saturday's swag was considerably greater! 

Buttons! Stickers! Books! Bags! Woohoo!! I even snagged a couple books by our authors to bring home!

I found a booth offering these little gems - reprints of short stories on recycled paper and illustrated.

A table nearby was offering lessons on binding chapbooks, so I went over and bound one (Easy peasy - Only a needle and thread required.)

Here's my swanky badge I wore through the whole thing.

And here is the collective haul of books! I plan on giving most of them away, but some of them I will keep and read!

Saturday night, I met up with a girl whose fanfiction stories I edit! Her name is Reena (penname Selene Liath) and we went to an Irish pub called Lizzie's. 

I haven't been editing her stuff for very long, but we really hit it off! She's really sweet, smart, and I absolutely adore her already. I very much look forward to continue working with her - and it was just a bonus that I got to meet her so quickly!

I love getting to meet people from the fanfiction community (you may remember that that was how I met Siobhan), and I've also met a few other writers that way. And although I met Ally in class, we realized rather quickly that we both wrote fanfiction, and that was one of the ways we bonded.

Overall, the time I spent in Chicago was amazing, and I wouldn't trade it for anything! I learned so much, and if I can, I want to try and go next year!