Day at the Book Festival

I can't quite put my finger on why the book festival was so fun. On one hand, we woke up earlier than we ever do on a Saturday. Crammed onto a crowded metro, only to get to a slightly less crowded series of tents. We spend about 7 hours in 90 degree weather. At least 4 of those hours were spend waiting in lines underneath the very strong sun. The remaining 3 were spent fighting crowds for seats in the slightly less hot giant tents so we could listen to people talk.

But, on the other hand we got to spend one of the last summery days of the season outside on the lovely national mall. We got to see some amazing authors and listen to some really cool insights on writing in general and their books in particular, including plenty of fun stories. There were also some really sweet questions from little kids who aspired to be writers, and some equally sweet answers. We got to spend a little time with some of our favorite authors, and have the signed books to show for it. Not good with social situations me got to be in an atmosphere were everyone was as book crazy as me. Even stuck in a line, I knew the people next to you shared a common love of a certain book enough to stand in crazy lines too, so we were able to have some fun conversations and get some good book recommendations.

See what I did there? Same story, different interpretations? It's lawyer magic! (Or why I shouldn't blog while finishing up a case theory assignment for law clinic.)

Basically, book festival was awesome. Even during the less than great parts, I was so excited to be there that I barely cared.

Book festival started at 10, with my first must see event at 10:30. We originally planned to show up early, but ended up showing up just barely in time to listen to Suzanne Collins, the genius behind The Hunger Games. She had some really interesting things to say about all the elements of her life as a military brat, a Mom in NYC on 9/11 and other  things that came into play and just generally how she wrote the books because she feels like we try to ignore how much war really does affect kids, we don't talk to them about it or help them process it, and maybe if we had those kinds of discussions we would all be more thoughtful about conflict. And then it was question time, and we moved immediately into tweens asking about Team Gale or Team Peeta (According to Collins, apparently Team Finnick has been getting quite a bit of support on the tour too, because heaven forbid a character be awesome outside of the context of a love triangle or square.)

Afterwards, I grossly underestimated the book signing lines, so thinking I had half an hour I moved over to the fiction tent where some time-travel scottish romance author was talking. I stayed just long enough to find out that apparently the attraction of men in kilts is "the idea that they could have you up against a wall in a heartbeat" (she has a point) before getting a call from Zach telling me that I might want to run over to get in line right this second.

He was right. I showed up about 25 minutes before signing started, and there were already so many people in front of me that I couldn't see the front. They moved the lines up in a very organized, staggered system, which mean we would just move up 10ft or so every 10 minutes. I'm sure there is a good reason for that, but without the reassurance of frequently moving I was convinced that there was no way I was going to get through. To their credit, a combination of limiting books to be stamped to 1 (she has a hand injury, so she uses an awesome stamp), being willing to stay late, and some incredible assemble line action up front meant we were all able to get through. Sure, it was a little impersonal, but still kind of a fun thrill.

Learning my lesson, I got into the next line right after getting my book signed/stamped. Meanwhile, Zach did his thing. We really didn't see each other much during the middle, just frequently checked in (bless cell phones) and briefly met up to get a drink, as we only thought to bring one water bottle and we didn't want either of us to wilt in the heat. I got one other book signed, The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. It's not that great of a book, but I got it for $5 at Powells and there wasn't anyone speaking when she was signing, so why not. The only downside was that the line the cued up next to us was for the Author of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Like everyone who was once a child, I love that book and it was disappointing to not have the time to pick up a copy and run over. I even had Zach try, but the book selling tent was sold out. Oh well. Mistakes happen. Even in Australia.

My very last line was one of the best. Blogging goddess, the Pioneer Woman. Wow. Of all the people I saw, she was by far the funniest and most gracious. I was probably only talking with her for maybe a minute, but she manged to make that feel sweet and personable. She said nice things about my name, made a cute joke and was generally awesome. Her teeth were also very white and her voice was much higher and tinklier than it is in my head. All in all, I've always liked her (or more so her recipes) but never quite got all the fuss. I get it now.

Plus, she signed my book way cooler than anyone else. Very big, bold and wonderful.

That was the last of the line standing and signing. Zach and I finally rejoined and ended up just collapsing on some empty chairs at the History and non-fiction tent for a while. We listened to the tail end of the Pulitzer biographer (journalism - always crazy) and a cute, feel good interview between an author on a book of inspirational stories of immigrants and his journalist wife. I left Zach there once I felt like I could stand again and went back to the children and teens tent for Katherine Patterson.

I don't know what it is about this woman, but I always sob at her books. Bridge to Terebithia, Jacob Have I Loved - great books, but I will only read them when I feel the need for a good cry. Apparently she can even work her magic in short doses. She only read for a few minutes from her new book about Kosovo refuges, and that's all it took for the tears to show up. Overall, she was just a very nice southern school librarian type - the perfect mix of insightful, gracious and funny. Generally speaking the festival seemed to be full of young families, a handful of twenty somethings and a whole host of women who just felt like school or children's librarians. I loved the librarians of my childhood, so just being around so many people with that vibe really made me happy. I miss the awesome mother earth types. Just generally it was nice to be out in DC with book lovers and without seeing a single suit.

And that was pretty much that. Well, we tried to go to dinner at a place we had a Restaurant.com certificate for, only to walk 10 blocks and find it closed. Much as I was food grr! at the moment, and ate like a ravenous wolf at choice #2 at Five Guys, it was still a great day. Oh books, I love you so.