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chelseagirlI never actually made it to the official NY is Book Country street fair, but related events took up much of the weekend . . . would have done more (some of the readings etc.) but this was one of those weekends when everything was converging all at once.
Saturday morning we saw Neil Gaiman doing a talk at the Equitable Center. We arrived about half an hour early and were #s 165 & 166 (they gave out armbands for the signing line). There were over 400 people there and I think our friends (Sarah, who joined us for the talk, and John, who was late but hung out with us on the line for awhile) were the only two who didn't stay.
The talk was for Sandman, *Endless Nights*. He told a little about each artist; since I know little about comics artists it was pretty fascinating. He read *15 Portraits of Despair*, which was ravaging, and then cheered us up with a poem called *Crazy Hair*. (He said it was the first NY reading; we think we must have heard it in Madison.)
There are women who really disgrace themselves over him: one in front of us squealed when he came onstage, told him she loved him during the q & a session, and bounced away from the signing line.
We waited for 2 1/2 hours, but he perked up when he saw us, or to be more accurate, M. They chatted about immigration; Neil's assistant Lorraine (who M.'s been friendly with since MadCon) and her musical career; our mutual friend Jon M. -- for whom we got a book signed and who Neil wrote a really charmingly personalized message "I owe you a letter. I know! I know!"; and other stuff. He congratulated us on our anniversary. I pretended to feel neglected the rest of the day and we joked about how my first novel will come out under the name "C--- S---, Martin the English guy's wife".
The next day, I went over to the Barnes and Noble at Union Square for a bunch of New Yorker sponsored signings. A. S. Byatt signed my copy of *Possession*. I told her that when I bought the book I was an attorney and that now I was completing my dissertation in Victorian literature, and she beamed and asked me about my work. She told me her father was a lawyer and that her family was split between attorneys and writers. I also got books signed by Richard Price, Jeffrey Eugenides (the big draw of the day; though I missed Zadie Smith and Jumpa Lhairi the previous day *pout*), and Jamaica Kincaid.
That evening, Felicia and I went to see Neil and Art Spiegelman at the 92nd St. Y. They talked a lot about comics and about writing for children vs. writing for adults. The signing line was considerably shorter -- we were near the end and it took about an hour -- but he recognized me and signed a few more of my Sandman collections (I'm about halfway through) and chatted a bit; Spiegelman also signed my two volumes of Maus, doing a mouse drawing in each. :-) Picked up Little Lit 3, Spiegelman and Mouley's new children's project (stories by Neil, Lemony Snicket, Patrick McDonnell whose wonderfully old-fashioned Mutts I love, etc.) , but didn't get it signed because I was over the limit . . .
Saturday morning we saw Neil Gaiman doing a talk at the Equitable Center. We arrived about half an hour early and were #s 165 & 166 (they gave out armbands for the signing line). There were over 400 people there and I think our friends (Sarah, who joined us for the talk, and John, who was late but hung out with us on the line for awhile) were the only two who didn't stay.
The talk was for Sandman, *Endless Nights*. He told a little about each artist; since I know little about comics artists it was pretty fascinating. He read *15 Portraits of Despair*, which was ravaging, and then cheered us up with a poem called *Crazy Hair*. (He said it was the first NY reading; we think we must have heard it in Madison.)
There are women who really disgrace themselves over him: one in front of us squealed when he came onstage, told him she loved him during the q & a session, and bounced away from the signing line.
We waited for 2 1/2 hours, but he perked up when he saw us, or to be more accurate, M. They chatted about immigration; Neil's assistant Lorraine (who M.'s been friendly with since MadCon) and her musical career; our mutual friend Jon M. -- for whom we got a book signed and who Neil wrote a really charmingly personalized message "I owe you a letter. I know! I know!"; and other stuff. He congratulated us on our anniversary. I pretended to feel neglected the rest of the day and we joked about how my first novel will come out under the name "C--- S---, Martin the English guy's wife".
The next day, I went over to the Barnes and Noble at Union Square for a bunch of New Yorker sponsored signings. A. S. Byatt signed my copy of *Possession*. I told her that when I bought the book I was an attorney and that now I was completing my dissertation in Victorian literature, and she beamed and asked me about my work. She told me her father was a lawyer and that her family was split between attorneys and writers. I also got books signed by Richard Price, Jeffrey Eugenides (the big draw of the day; though I missed Zadie Smith and Jumpa Lhairi the previous day *pout*), and Jamaica Kincaid.
That evening, Felicia and I went to see Neil and Art Spiegelman at the 92nd St. Y. They talked a lot about comics and about writing for children vs. writing for adults. The signing line was considerably shorter -- we were near the end and it took about an hour -- but he recognized me and signed a few more of my Sandman collections (I'm about halfway through) and chatted a bit; Spiegelman also signed my two volumes of Maus, doing a mouse drawing in each. :-) Picked up Little Lit 3, Spiegelman and Mouley's new children's project (stories by Neil, Lemony Snicket, Patrick McDonnell whose wonderfully old-fashioned Mutts I love, etc.) , but didn't get it signed because I was over the limit . . .
