{"id":18496,"date":"2016-05-04T08:30:48","date_gmt":"2016-05-04T12:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=18496"},"modified":"2016-05-04T08:30:48","modified_gmt":"2016-05-04T12:30:48","slug":"authors-at-the-airport-mice-at-the-expo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=18496","title":{"rendered":"Authors at the Airport, Mice at the Expo"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMG_6549\"When scouting possible locations for a fundraising event featuring 21 authors, you wouldn’t\u00a0immediately think of the\u00a0airport as a potential\u00a0venue. But in a small city like Burlington, it’s not only feasible, it’s fantastic. Big windows, lots of light and space for setting up, and a series of available rooms for author panels and presentations \u2014plus free parking for the event\u2014 made the Stern Center’s annual\u00a0gala beautiful and unique.
\nI’d noticed a lot of civic things happening lately at our mighty little Burlington International Airport, so when I had a chance to meet its newest owner, Gene Richards, I asked him what was going on. “This airport was built with taxpayer dollars,” he said, “and it should be available to the community that built it.” One of his favorite recent events was a dinner to celebrate the Refugee Resettlement Program. Food from many international cultures were shared from family to family. It was a way to bring\u00a0new Americans and longtime Vermonters together. Love that!
\n
\nThe morning sessions were devoted to children’s books and featured Jason Chin<\/a>, Deirdre Gill<\/a>, Kate Messner<\/a>, me<\/a>\u00a0with my drummer pal Sue Schmidt<\/a>,\u00a0and Harry Bliss<\/a>. Afternoon sessions were for authors of adult fiction and nonfiction, and included special out-of-town guest B.A. Shapiro<\/a> (The Art Forger<\/em>, The Muralist<\/em>), along with a host of fabulous Vermont\u00a0authors and presenters: Philip Baruth<\/a>, Janet Biehl<\/a>,\u00a0Brenda Buzzell<\/a>,\u00a0Bronwyn Jones Dunne<\/a>,\u00a0Barry Estabrook<\/a>, Dr. Lewis First<\/a>,\u00a0Stephen Kiernan<\/a>, Jack Mayer<\/a>, Tracey Medeiros<\/a>,\u00a0Karen Newman<\/a>, Joanne Palmisano<\/a>, Stephen Russell Payne<\/a>, Willard Sterne Randall<\/a>,\u00a0Bill Schubart<\/a>, Phoebe Stone<\/a>,\u00a0Tanya Lee Stone<\/a>, and Katie Webster<\/a>.
\nI snapped a couple of photos of the bookselling and silent auction areas during set-up. You can see how beautiful the space is!
\n\"IMG_6553\" \"IMG_6554\"
\nWhen I asked Mr. Richards if large-scale events\u2014especially one like this, which lasted from 7 a.m. set-up until 9 p.m. breakdown\u2014added additional\u00a0security\u00a0pressure\u00a0for the airport, he acknowledged that there are extra duties, but seemed comfortable with them. “We have more than 700 cameras, and people watching them.” Then he added, with a smile,\u00a0“I’m always<\/em> alert.” I believed him, and made a mental note not to ever\u00a0do anything potentially embarrassing at an airport again. Like the week before, when I had chugged my remaining 16 ounces of water from the bottle I forgot about before security, and half of it spilled down my front.
\nI was busy selling books most of the day, but the author events I did get to peek in at were well-attended and lively.\u00a0Because the event was held on a\u00a0weekday, the Stern Center had invited schools to attend, so there were lots of preschoolers and kindergartners on hand.\u00a0I had a blast at my own event. I’ll never forget Kate Messner, Jason Chin, and Deirdre Gill “wokka-ing” around the room with the children. Authors are such game individuals! And Laurie Burke, the incredibly gracious, hardworking Stern Center event guru, was extra happy with the Flying Pig thanks to our staffer Laura Heaberlin, who hooked up\u00a0the Stern Center\u00a0with her singing partner, 25-year-old Taylor Smith, for a last-minute event\u00a0substitution. Taylor charmed hordes of tots with his guitar and sweet voice. I’m used to Laura and Taylor’s haunting, complex melodies in their band, Cricket Blue<\/a>, so it was surreal to suddenly hear that familiar voice piping, “Heads, shoulders, knees and toes” with a bunch of four-year-olds.
\nWe had another fun offsite event: Girl Expo VT, a celebration of all things Girl Scout. Author-illustrator Sarah Dillard<\/a> had been invited because her new chapter book series, Mouse Scouts<\/a><\/em>, is PERFECT for Girl Scouts ages 7 and up. Sarah’s\u00a0publisher, Random House\/Knopf, arranged for a booth at the exposition center in\u00a0the big fairgrounds building. I printed up some posters of Sarah’s book covers mounted on foam core, and Sarah designed a third poster with both covers and her adorable mouse scouts that we also printed out to decorate the booth. (I couldn’t find my usual store banner that morning, so made do with\u00a0this little red one. Ah, well. The posters looked great!)
\n

\"IMG_4312\"

Author-artist Sarah Dillard, keeping it together better than I was able to during a funny moment setting up the booth table.<\/p><\/div>
\nWe sold 120\u00a0of Sarah’s books, and\u2014just as\u00a0exciting\u2014Sarah was approached by the woman in charge of the international Girl Scout convention, who thought she would be a great addition to that conference, which brings together 10,000 Girl Scouts from all over the world every autumn. How cool is that?! Even if we hadn’t sold any books, that connection alone would have made it worth the visit for Sarah and her publisher.
\nI wish I had had the time and opportunity to take pictures of Sarah’s reading and signing books for all of those scouts. While the sweet spot for Sarah’s books is 7\u00a0to young\u00a010, there were 11- and 12-year-old readers who begged their moms to buy the book.\u00a0That was interesting to me as a bookseller; now I’ll feel comfortable recommending this series\u2014which is so cute, and was reviewed in the New York Times<\/a> in April\u2014 to a broader age range than I would have before the event.
\nWhile, in general, offsite events tend to end up\u00a0more expense than income because of staff time, materials needed, and returns processed and shipped, they are almost always valuable and fun, and\u00a0lead to great community connections, not to mention the kind of goodwill fostered by collaboration and hard work toward a common goal. I’m definitely a fan of the offsite event. If only I could clone my staff….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Offsite bookselling events can happen in the most unusual places….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18496\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}