Sunday, August 16, 2009

Favorite Moments from SCBWI L.A.: Part One

So I think the maniacal bunny men are sufficiently subdued enough (and the kids are finally asleep!) for me to blog about my many adventures from SCBWI L.A.!! There's so much to tell, I think I'll have to sift it down to my favorite moments--and probably break it into more than one post. So here we go:

1. Almost missing the plane to L.A.--and no, I didn't sleep in and get to the airport late. In fact, I got up at 3:30 in the morning and got to the airport by 5:00 am for my 6:00 flight. My BFFs, and conference buddies, Brodi Ashton and Emily Wing Smith got there shortly after me. We sat there waiting for our flight to be called . . . and waited and waited and waited some more . . . until the guy with the little microphone suddenly called out in a very snippy voice, "Passengers Ashton, Despain, and Smith, this is your final call. Are you planning on joining us this morning?!"

The snippy man with the microphone claims that he called our flight several times, and called our names individually several times. But I still think he was lying. I mean, we were staring right at him the whole time . . . But anyway, we made it onto the already filled plane just in time, and apart from poor Brodi's eardrum almost bursting mid-flight, we made it to the conference without a hitch.

2.The Tenners Meet The Bloggers Lunch: One of the best things I did while in L.A. was to get to meet some of my fellow tenners, and some of the awesome YA bloggers I've made friends with on twitter. Fellow Tenners were Kim Derting, Lindsey Leavitt, Christy Raedeke, Jennifer Cervantes, Suzanne Young, Denise Jaden, and Matthew Kirby. And a few other authors showed up, too. Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl (Beautiful Creatures), along with Jay Asher (Thirteen Reasons Why) and even Holly Black (Spiderwick Chronicles) was there for a bit.

The bloggers included Catt from The Dreamer Reader, Alicia from Shooting Stars Mag, Vania from Reverie Book Reviews, and Khy from Frenetic Reader. Some of the bloggers came with their moms--who I think are some of the coolest moms I've ever met!! I mean, any mom who would drive their teenage daughters out to meet a bunch of authors are totally awesome in my book.
(Khy, Catt, and Alicia--3 of my favorite bloggers! Too bad I can't get the picture bigger.)


Khy and her Mom made each of authors a cool gift bag full of specific presents based on our blog posts and our books.

My bag included:

A purple matchbox Mustang . . . Because I LOVE Mustangs and will eventually buy myself one someday.

Purple duct tape, so hubby can make me something cool to wear out of it.

A box of pastels . . .Because the MC in my book is an artists and needs a new box of pastels.

And a box of Ghiredelli Brownie Mix bigger than my head! (Because I'm a chocoholic.) The box was so big I couldn't fit it into my suitcase so Brodi offered to carry it home for me . . .Hey, wait a second, I haven't gotten those back yet!!


(Me with the brownie box bigger than my head. Seriously, Bro, where are my brownie?!)

The other cool thing about lunch is that I got to share chips and salsa with the awesome Jay Asher.

(This is Jay sitting across from me at the restaurant wearing an Egyptian hat given to him by Khy. I know the picture is really fuzzy, but I put it in here to prove that I really did eat lunch with JAY ASHER!!)

3. Meeting Sherman Alexie . . .and he LOVED our shirts. At the beginning of the conference, each member of the faculty was forced to share one word with the nearly 1000 conference goers in the audience. After many got up to share inspirational words like hope, listen, acceptance, Sherman Alexie got up and said, "Inappropriate." Well, we were all already crushing on Sherman's brilliance and plotting a way to get to meet him, so hearing that gave us the perfect plan. You see, Brodi, Emily, and I all made "bad review" shirts in order to "wear" the things people had said about our books. Well, Emily's shirt just happened to say "inappropriate" because of a ridiculous B&N review of her book . . . So we knew we HAD to show our shirts to Sherman. So anyway, Sherman LOVED out shirts and was happy to take a picture with us.

Me: Blasphemous (and looking very shiny), Sherman the Awesome, Emily: Inappropriate, and Brodi: Violent

Okay, wow, this post is getting long . . .and we're only 24 hours into the conference. Let's adjourn for now, but be sure to leave a comment. For everyone who comments on this (and future) SCBWI L.A. posts will be entered into a drawing to win one of three awesome AUTOGRAPHED books I picked up at the conference.

25 comments:

Reverie said...

OMG!!!!! you got to meet Sherman Alexie??? AGH!!! I was totally crushing on him after that MARVELOUS SPEECH!!!

And it was SO AWESOME to meet you all. I am just bummed we didnt have enough time to make rounds around the table and talk to everyone!

Lenore Appelhans said...

That is a big box of brownies!

WonderGirl12 said...

Sound like you has an aaaaawwweeesooome time! so cool!

californiameaghan said...

i am absolutely in love with the shirt idea! sounds like you had tons of fun!

Anonymous said...

I'm sooooo jealous that couldn't go! It looked like fun and the chance to see/meet those authors. Sigh. Maybe next time.

Cari said...

I need more vacation time on my job. Or I just need to move to a big city. They'll never have ALA or SCBWI conventions near me!
It does make me wonder, though, how authors who don't write full time make it to these things. It seems like you can go to a training or something at least once a month!
Anyway, I love hearing about it!
Cari
neohippy10 at hotmail dot com

a flight of minds said...

Wow, that sounds so fun! I love the t-shirts! And that brownie box... yummm. :)

- Alex

Natascha De Marco said...

I wish I could have been there!!! Is this going to be done next year?

*Crying herself to sleep*

Valynne said...

I think you should make Sherman Alexie a shirt for the next conference . . . or for October when he comes for the signing.

Khy said...

LOVED meet you! :D Hope you get the brownies make soon. xD

JESSJORDAN said...

The Dark Divine is "blasphemous"? Shame on you! :)

Seriously, I don't know how I missed these awesome shirts, but I guess it's hard to see everything when 900+ people are in the room! I can't wait to see more of your highlights--these were great!

Alyosha said...

So sad I couldn't be there with you! Next year for sure. In the meantime, I will live vicariously through your blog. :)

Kim Reid said...

If you have 13 Reasons Why to give away, I get it. I don't care how. IT'S MINE.

I feel like I haven't seen you for a while. We should write so I can hear more about this supposed "conference." Sounds like a party to me.

Andrea Cremer said...

Your shirts are fantastic! Way to turn snark into snazz - I love it; the Tenners are class & wit embodied, great job!

Brodi Ashton said...

Hey, I did you a favor by fitting those brownies in my suitcase.

... they were delicious.

Bree Biesinger Despain said...

Thanks for commenting, guys! More conference stories coming tomorrow. And yes, it was pretty much just a bog ole party with Brodi and Em.

deltay said...

Sounds like day 1 was a ton of fun! Glad you guys didn't miss the flight :) That kind of sucks though that the dude was kind of snippy. And you got to meet so many awesome people! Looking forward to seeing what else transpired :) And LOL @ blasphemous!

Brooke said...

ummm. . . are you going to share those brownies?. . . sounds like a blast-I cant wait to read all these books! Can I come by Wednesday and pick some up?

Cassie said...

Sounds like a fun meeting! Authors are my rock stars!

Bree Biesinger Despain said...

Okay, I know I said I'd blog again today--but I ended up spending the evening dealing with porn spammers on twitter. Grummble, grummble. Now I'm just really annoyed and cranky.

Cranberryfries said...

I'm loving those shirts, what a cute idea.

WordVore Prod said...

OMG! You lucky, lucky person! And the shirts are made of awesome sauce. I'd prolly get Crazy.

alastaircookie said...

Those shirts are made of awesome!!Whoa, my mind is boggling at how many awesome people you got to meet! =D And that airport dude sounds very irritating. =(

WhatBriReads said...

So my comment is totally late, but this looks like so much fun, with a bunch of awesome people. And I am so jealous of those brownies!!

Bianca said...

Oh I love the pictures! I'm glad you guys a had a great time! :)