Blue Ridge bookfest

This past Friday and Saturday I attended the Blue Ridge Bookfest in Hendersonville, NC. Friday was a meet and greet author reception with a reading performance by a group from the local area of the featured author's, Ann B. Ross, first book - a Miss Julia book. Saturday the authors greeted patrons at their tables while Malaprop's Bookstore sold copies of all exhibiting authors' books.



(doesn't help see the back too well with me wearing a blue shirt under the shawl. I'll make sure the next time I'm wearing a white shirt so that the colors show up better) (basically I'll have two outfits - white shirt, blue jeans and shawl; blue shirt, white pants and shawl)

(my shawl was tie dyed and is an original from Tina's Tie Dye

On Saturday, May 21, 2011, The Travelin' Maven, Ma America, made her debut. What do you think? I also have matching shoestrings in my tennis shoes but haven't taken a picture of the whole person so shoes can't be seen right now - lol. So officially, "Ma America" is now my alter ego. On the back of my shawl, I placed the lettering - "THE TRAVELIN' MAVEN" and on the front "MA AMERICA". The letters are stick ons I picked up at Walmart in the department where the mailboxes are since the crafts/sewing department didn't have anything cheap that I liked. I used 2 inch lettering on the back part and 3 inch lettering on the front. I think it turned out pretty good. I'll be looking for some more permanent (iron-on or sew-on) lettering soon but for now, this will have to do.



These are a few pictures of my table setup, but I moved my sign after a couple of hours when I had trouble getting out from between the tables when the folks behind me got there (you can see in the picture how we were). but didn't take any new pictures of the sign on the other side. There were a few children's authors there (maybe half a dozen or so), poets, historical fiction, and some nonfiction authors as well. I think there was a little bit of something for everyone but not enough traffic. I'd love to have seen more teachers or families visiting but many factors could have come in to play over the weekend.

Here are a couple of folks I met during the day. The one thing I did forget to do was to get some pictures of my friend Beatryce Shaw, author of the Brown Roses series, and I apologize to her for that. She had her brown roses on the table which were very pretty.

Kit Grady, author and illustrator

Mango's table (partial as there were other books displayed as well)

John Bemis, a YA author I'd met last year at the SCBWI Fall Conference in Charlott.


It was a good weekend but exhausting. See you all in the postings -

Savannah Children's Book festival

I'm a little late posting this but overall the day was fun. I talked to a lot of people, sold a few books and had a good contact, although I wish I had gotten more contact information from him so that I could followup on his statement. Mr. Bob bought a copy of Train of Clues to take to school, stating that he was a 5th grade teacher (yay!! because the series are perfect for that grade) and that he was on the committee that buys books for the classes and library, not sure if it is district wide or just his school. Anyway, he said they had a meeting last week and that he was definitely going to make sure my books made their way into the school. So, hopefully that will be coming soon. I'm sure it is a process to go through to get books approved for classroom use and to have in the library and all, but this could be a little break that I need to get started.

I'm glad Benjamin went me this year as having him sitting at the table allowed me more freedom to walk around and see some acquaintances and friends and make a few new ones on the way.

I saw some signage I would like to have - Meet the Author, book signing type things but that will have to wait until I get some decent orders and the series starts taking off or until next spring when I start all over again with the homeschool conferences and other events I plan on attending.

Here are a few pictures from the event - enjoy - see you all in the postings - Mrs. E & the JGDS :)


This is my table setup from the front side showing my map. The map is getting a bit used since I am hanging it on all my table displays wherever I go; I'll have to replace it with a new map soon - lol (thank goodness for Dollar Tree - yep, that map came from Dollar Tree with my wording added to it).




This is the "freebie" banner I ordered from vistaprint (my cost came out to about $10 for shipping and the plastic grommets that are self adhesed to the banner - not bad for a "freebie") Eventually the banner and map will be together as a meet the author type banner on a stand -






A friend of a friend (a new friend to me) took this one while I was away from the table of Benjamin - as you can see there was a bit of a crowd there while I was gone.


Overall it was a good day and hopefully Mr. Bob will come through with a nice order for the first five books for the school/district/libraries. See you in the postings - Mrs. E & the JGDS :)