BEA - Thursday

I arrived Thursday morning and took some form of a car service to the Brooklyn Marriott where the ABA had invaded.  I had the pleasure of sharing this cab with Suzanne DeGaetano of Mac's Backs Paperbacks from Cleveland Heights, OH, and we had a nice conversation about BEA and the publishing industry.

We arrived at the Marriott and this led to possibly the most tense aspect of BEA for me - hoping I could pick Karl Pohrt, owner of Shaman Drum Booksellers in Ann Arbor, MI, out of the crowd, as we were missing each other via cell phone frequently.  Good news, he walked out of a seminar and walked right in front of me.

I then found out what subway lines to take to get as close as possible to the Javits Center, home to BEA and went to the Press Room to obtain my badge and other information.  I very briefly spoke with Roger Bilheimer, the man in charge of the Press Room, who did a great job in making sure bloggers were involved in the process this year which was greatly appreciated on my end.  I also met Sarah Weinman for the first time there!  Not long after she left to go cover something for Galleycat, the other GC'er, Ron Hogan, came strolling in hot on the trail of the story of the rather pricey wi-fi prices.

I stayed in the Press Room waiting to meet up with LBC members Carolyn Kellogg (who was kind enough to introduce me to David Kipen, currently the Director of Literature of the NEA), Ed Champion, and Mark Sarvas.  It was the first time I'd had the pleasure of Ed's company.  We had a nice conversation and broke it up after a little more than an hour.  It's truly a nice thing to be able to do in person what you've been doing via email for the past few years.

From there I took a long walk (at least long to this non-New Yorker who hasn't walked this much since he was a student on a college campus) to the German Consulate to the UN.  Well, with a small side-track to a restaurant to eat a bit of dinner (this was my one slightly extravagent meal, as by the time I decided I needed to eat, I wasn't finding any more diner type restaurants).  As I arrived at the front of the Consulate, a cab pulled up and Karl Pohrt stepped out - perfect timing.  We went up to the 23rd floor where the Reading the World party was being held.

It was there that I had the pleasure of meeting Chad Post (who announced the formation of Open Letter Press!), Bud Parr, James Marcus, Tess Lewis, Megan S., Philip Leventhal, Julia (I believe) - GM of Shaman Drum, and I'm sure I'm embarrassingly skipping some names here (apologies).  Oh, I also did see Meagen Kujac of Shaman Drum as well and was introduced to her husband.

From there Ed Champion (see, another name I skipped), and I shared a cab across town to Kettle of Fish where the LBC party was supposed to be being at least partially hosted by the two of us.  Actually it was already in the much better hands of Jessica Stockton, Levi Asher, Carolyn Kellogg, and Anne Fernald.  And later on, Mark Sarvas, Megan S., and C. Max Magee were also present.  Former LBC'ers Sarah Weinman and Bud Parr rolled in later (and did Ron Hogan as well?  If so, I missed him, but thought I heard that he did).  Also, Garth Risk Hallberg, fantastic contributor at Max's Millions, was also there.

Here's who i know I met (and again, apologies to those I've forgotten - feel free to remind me in the comments), or at least introduced myself, or waved, to:

Judy Heiblum (agent extraordinaire at Sterling Lord Literistic), Tao Lin, Bella Stander (who looks great, even if you didn't know how trying her past year has been), Patry Francis, Tish Cohen, Susan Henderson, Timothy Schaffert, Arthur Phillips, Whitney Terrell (and his sister), Laura Dave, Joshua Kornreich, Fiona Mccrae, Mary Matze, Colson Whitehead, Richard Nash, Terrie Akers, Emily S. Cook, Jami Attenberg, Caitlin Hamilton-Summie, Kathy Daneman, and, and, this is how I know my memory sucks.  I'm positive there were many more there I said hi to, was introduced to, etc. and I again, heartily apologize to those I've not mentioned).

Update:

Damn.  Took all of four seconds after posting this to remember I also met Kevin Sampsell of Future Tense Books.  Kevin was kind enough to give me a galley of quite possibly THE buzz book of BEA, a chapbook of Gary Lutz's new stories.  The fact that there are only 14 of these galleys in existence had people coming close to fistfighting for them!

Yeah, Update number two, a mere five seconds after the first update - author Susan Daitch came out to say hi, which was very cool as she received a very late invitation (I believe I shot it out Wednesday or so...)

Comments

[tao]

i held the gary lutz, it felt very smooth and nice. kevin said there were only 12 though. who is right?

you forgot to link to my blog dan.

[Erin]

My non-attendance remorse, which was already bad, just got worse...I was in Susan's workshop my senior year of college!

[patry]

It was great to finally meet in person!