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 -