The Twin Cities annual Book Festival was held on Saturday, October 12th, 2013 at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds. It started out as a beautiful Fall day. There were hundreds of venders, that included publishers, authors, creative writing institutions, a children's pavillon, booksellers and more. There was a used book sale, a literary lounge, book signings, music, brain games and lots of panels and author speaking events. Oh my gosh, so much to do and so little time. I only had 4 hours this year to get my fill of the book festival. How dare people schedule other events on the day of the Book Festival. What are they thinking?
I met lots of authors, including some notable YA authors. Authors are my rock stars and I was super excited to meet these amazing authors.
S.A. Bodeen- YA author of The Compound, Fallout, The Raft and The Gardener
Geoff Herbach -YA author of Stupid Fast, Nothing Special and I'm With Stupid
Swati Avasthi- YA author of Split and Chasing Shadows
Kevin Cannon - Graphic novelist- Author of Far Arden and Crater XV
Marlon James -author of The Book of Night Women and John Crow's Devil
Alison McGhee- Author of Shadow Baby and 20 other books, including Children and YA novels.
Delia Ephron- Author of Sister, Mother, Husband, Dog and 9 other books plus screenplays.
(Delia spoke in depth about her family and her life. She is an excellent speaker, very funny and endearing.) Oh and I had my picture taken with her. See below.
These are the books I came home with:
Crater XV by Kevin Cannon
The Gardener by S.A. Bodeen
Guantanamo Boy (A signed copy) by Anna Perera
Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness (The third book in the Chaos Walking Series)
And 3 books of Poetry
Salt Heart by Kate Hallett Dayton
Earth's Appetite by Margaret Hasse
The Heart of All This Is: Reflections on Home- Edited by Jim Perlman
My bag was HEAVY!
That's not all, I got an email from Graywolf Press today (I love this press because they publish awesome books) and they are sending me a copy of On Sal Mal Lane by Ru Freeman. Yay, I am doing the happy dance.
Plus I met a fellow Minnesota Book Blogger named Kim and her blog is Sophisticated Dorkiness
I love meeting new people and I don't know many other MN book bloggers. Check out her blog.
All in all I had a great day and I can't wait for next year's festival. Thanks Rain Taxi for setting up such a great event, year after year, you rock.
