When he did a Not Your Mother’s Book Club event at Books Inc. the other day, he regaled the audience with a snippet from ANDROMEDA KLEIN and also with some great songs like the aptly-titled “I Wrote a Book About Rock and Roll.”

It just so happens that Frank will be touring in New York when I’m there next week, so I wanted to tell all the folks who might be in the area. He’ll be appearing:

Friday, September 18, 2009
8:00pm - 10:00pm
The Housing Works at 126 Crosby St. in New York, NY

Saturday, September 19, 2009
4:00pm - 5:30pm
WORD bookstore at 126 Franklin Street in Brooklyn, NY

Sunday, September 20, 2009
6:00pm - 8:00pm
Sidewalk Cafe at 94 Ave. A in New York, NY

The last event is with Tiger Beat (led by awesome YA author Libba Bray). I’ll be at that one for sure and maybe one of the other two. (If I hadn’t already warned him, I bet he’d think I’m stalking him!) If you’re in the area, go to a Dr. Frank show… they’re always a lot of fun!

Frank signing copies of ANDROMEDA KLEIN at Books Inc.

Sarah, who is extremely charming, spent an hour or two circulating from table to table to chat with her fans and readers up close. Then she did a little reading from her brand new release, ALONG FOR THE RIDE, which everyone should go pick up. Right now.

She had some really interesting things to say. Did you know that she found being a full time writer more difficult than she ever thought it would be?

When she was sitting at my table, she told us how having her baby recently completely changed how she thinks of her writing career. Caring for something else so much really helped get her out of her own head. Writing ALONG FOR THE RIDE, as a result, was a completely different experience.

That’s a good thing to keep in mind, and you don’t have to have a baby to experience it: step outside of yourself every once in a while. Get your mind off your obsessive writing patterns. Approach your craft from a different direction. Even the biggest, baddest, most bestselling pros do this.

Without further ado, here are some great pictures from the event, after the jump.

The event was set up in the back of Books Inc. Opera Plaza with tables and chairs for 50 of Sarah Dessen’s closest friends.

Here are some awesome writers and Sarah Dessen fans, including three members of my brand new critique group. Hey Connie, @whitneymiller and @marthaflynn!

Sarah posing pretty for another camera, so I had to sneak in a shot of my own.

Sarah chatting away at a table.

More chatting.

A lovely close-up shot, if I don’t say so myself. (Someone give this photographer a hand, whoever she is!)

More Sarah Dessen fans. Can anybody spot Heidi Kling, Cynthia and @debbieduncan?

The room looks awesome, and not just because I got there early to help set up, hehe. Jenn did an incredible job organizing everything.

A group of high school students enjoying lunch with their teachers and talking books. (How cool is that?)

Sarah during her reading, holding up a copy of ALONG FOR THE RIDE.

Reading…

An attentive audience drinks it all in.

More reading.

Who rocks the mic? Sarah Dessen, of course.

Reading…

Cynthia Jaynes Omololu and Heidi Kling pretend they’re hanging out with an almost life-sized Sarah. The real Sarah is right there, you guys!

Writers and fans cradling ALONG FOR THE RIDE.

Sarah posing with a fan in her signing line.

Sarah signing for Heidi and Debbie.

Debbie, Heidi and Sarah.

Alright! That wraps up another awesome NYMBC event. Hope everyone got a vicarious thrill from the pictures. If anyone needs these pictures in a larger format, just e-mail me (mary at kidlit dot com) and let me know what you want and how big you need it.

This was another incredible Books Inc. event.

The kind that propelled me out of bed, to the Javits, into line, back home, to Javits again, into line, into line, into line, into line (and on and on and on)? I don’t know either. If you find it, let me know. Since I don’t think my blog displays the time of each post, I must tell you something that will make you tremendously disappointed in me. Yesterday’s wake-up call? 4:37. Today’s? 8:24. No crazy signing tickets, no pre-dawn running around.

However, there is a caveat to these very un-BEA-warrior numbers. The plain fact of the matter is that I went to bed around the same time I woke up yesterday. The sun was coming up. It was rather beautiful. Beautiful but deadly.

Whose grand idea was it to stay up all night, at a hoochie-infested 24 hour diner, no less? We’ll never know. Rest assured, it was an amazing time. First I went to the Kidlit Drinks get-together at Houndstooth (alas, the event was not in my honor, hehe…) and met some fabulous new friends. Then got talking and just… didn’t… stop. I swear, I was out and talking for so long that I must’ve told my life story — all the fine points included — three and a half times.

“There was this one time, with this peanut butter and banana sandwich…”

“We. Know.”

Whoops.

But it was incredible and now that I’ve had a shower and some time to get used to the idea of running on so little sleep, I’m feeling pretty human again.

On today’s agenda is a lot less signing. I’m going to one panel, a signing or two when I can fit them in, and then the rest of the day I’ll probably be walking the third level, which I didn’t do yesterday, and going to meetings. Tonight, there’s a fabulous get-together for Blue Boarders and then a party that I’ll be going to.

And then I’m going to sleep so hardcore and so much that I’m about 90% certain I’ll miss tomorrow morning’s flight. But hey, this is my first time here and I might as well take it to the limit, right guys? Right? Right? I’ll assume your silence to mean a resounding “HELL YES!”

After that, I went downstairs to start my long line of signings (and of long lines). Highlights: Neil Gaiman, Suzanne Collins, Scott Westerfeld, Mo Willems, three finalists from Top Chef, Emeril Lagasse, Adrienne Kress, Sarah MacLean and Ally Carter.

This took up most of my day. At the end of the afternoon, I caught YA Editors’ Buzz, with David Levithan, Arthur Levine, Ari Lewin, Krista Marino, Mark Siegel, Liz Szabla and Tara Weikum. What a blast to hear editors discuss the projects that make them squee! I managed to get through some pages of CATCHING FIRE while waiting in various lines (why yes, I am awesome, thank you very much) and then went to some editor meetings with the director of the agency. It was super cool to hear an agent and editor discussing projects and needs. I’ll be doing much more of that tomorrow.

Are you ready for some pictures? If you want your mind seriously blown, click the link below:

The Children’s Author Breakfast.

Julie Andrews!

Paul Yarrow!

Meg Cabot!

Mo Willems mugging for someone’s camera.

Ally Carter.

The line to get an ARC of CATCHING FIRE by Suzanne Collins.

Sarah MacLean signing copies of THE SEASON. Yes, that’s Devyn from 5 Awesome YA Fans getting his book signed!

Chronicle Books. Woowoo! Repre-ZENT!

Hosea Rosenberg, Ariane Duarte and Hung Huynh from Top Chef signing their cookbook in the Chronicle booth.

And again.

And again. I love Top Chef, okay?

The lovely Adrienne Kress was so kinetic and animated it was hard to get a good picture of her. Oh well. Tomorrow I’ll do better!

Oh, nothing, just WATCHING THE CHARMING BRITISH GOD OF YA STANDING 10 FEET AWAY!

For those of you who don’t know, Neil Gaiman is writing “I love you Mary, a lot, you are my muse… [rest redacted, personal in nature]”

Just because I was there, I took a snap of Joyce Carol Oates. Those books piled up next to her? Yeah, those are all the ones she wrote since sitting down. Last year’s pile was bigger.

Yes, I’ve revealed myself to be a food geek. Now, Emeril is pretty mainstream to have any foodie cred, but he’s freaking awesome, okay? BAM!

This is sadly the best picture I could get of Scott Westerfeld. I told you, this camera will die a slow, gadgety death as soon as I get home with it.

The panelists at BEA YA Editors’ Buzz.

And those are all my pictures for today. Sadly, didn’t get a shot of Suzanne Collins (the line was INSANE). Nor did I get to go to the Meg Cabot signing (see aforementioned insane lineage). But overall, a pretty good day. My feet are about to fall off and I might’ve dislocated my arm from hauling all those books but… such are the occupational hazards of a book geek.

Now I’m off to a bar and then, hopefully, to an early sleep. Then the adventure begins anew tomorrow!

You’ll have to excuse my pictures from this trip. There was no way I planned on hauling around my extremely nice but heavy Canon Rebel SLR. Knowing me, I’d either drop it or chuck it against a wall in frustration because the lighting inside the Javits is bound to be a pain in the butt to shoot manually. So I picked up an infuriating little Nikon CoolpieceofshitPix to take on-the-fly snaps with. (Good thing Best Buy has a return policy, s’all I’m sayin’…). So, with that as a caveat, below is the best shot of me and the line. The major blurriness is fitting, actually, as it’s a pretty dead-on reflection of my bleary state of mind right now:

More Javits:

Here are my signing tickets for today. First, just because he’s here, I got:

BAM! Next, I’m more than a little excited about:

And finally, the one that officially makes me the pretty little princess:

And here’s a nice shot of my hotel, the New Yorker, from in front of Javits:

On my way down 35th street, I encountered the biggest puddle ocean in the middle of the sidewalk and couldn’t go around it. So my shoes and the entire bottom quarter of my pants are soaked. Just in time for me to walk around in them all day long. There’s a PayLess across the street but I doubt they’ll open before I have to be at the Children’s Author Breakfast at 8. Oh well. I’m a book warrior and, after this quick update, I’m off to Javits again.

Now it’s day 1 of BEA. I’m sad I missed the YA Author Carnival yesterday but I was stuck on the tarmack for an inexplicable hour after we landed, gritting my teeth, only to get stuck some more in rush hour traffic. Not the case today. Today I’m getting to the Javits, only three blocks from my hotel, early. How early, you ask?

CATCHING FIRE signing tickets early, aka. hours before the sun even thinks about rising:

The mist around New York was so thick yesterday that my plane only broke through the clouds about 20 seconds before landing. It’s no different today. The city outside my window is a very unattractive shade of flu booger yellow:

And now that I’m awake, I put on my game face:

And I… run across the street to Duane Reade for the toothpaste I forgot to pack… and then, it’s on. Although I did commit a very unpleasant tactical error. I read the only book I brought (who brings books to BEA?) on the plane yesterday, so I have nothing to entertain me in line except, well, hopefully, other crazed book fans who have no life and wake up at 4:30 a.m. to lay their hands on Suzanne Collins signing tickets.

Book nerds, into the fray! Stay tuned here for my BEA adventures.

The reading was wonderful, with so many friends, family and fans in the store to cheer our debs on. Punch, cupcakes, cookies, tiaras and pearls were in abundance to make it a truly white-glove affair. In fact, bookseller extraordinaire, Summer, even showed up with kid gloves. Cheryl read from BREATHING first, and had some inspirational words for writers:

Read a lot, write a lot, kill the inner critic.

When her first manuscript didn’t sell, Cheryl admitted the following:

It was hard not to give up, but people told me to start working on something new. That book was BREATHING. It was the best advice I got.

C. Lee McKenzie read from SLIDING ON THE EDGE next. In fact, she had her first paragraph memorized! She told the audience that her idea for the book came from a newspaper article, and brought the clipping that started it all. So look out, writers, inspiration is everywhere. She also told people to build their web presence, book deal or not, so that you can start connecting with readers and develop your career.

The pretty pink princess of the evening, Sarah Quigley, then read from TMI (here are links to: my review, my interview with Sarah). No wonder Becca, her character does theatre… Sarah had great stage, er, bookstore presence and totally nailed her character’s voice.

After getting books signed, everyone poured out of the store on a total sugar high. This isn’t the last you’ll hear from these debut authors, so if you haven’t picked up their books yet, do it now and get in the know. Some of my lucky readers don’t need to go through the trouble, though. They’ve won autographed, personalized copies! Click the link below to reveal the contest winners and see more awesome pictures from the event!

A shot that didn’t make the top of the post, I love it for Sarah’s fierce mugging.

Cheryl Renee Herbsman reading from BREATHING as Sarah Quigley looks on (note the tiaras).

C. Lee McKenzie discusses the article that sparked her book idea.

Sarah Quigley cracks us (and herself) up!

Sarah Quigley reads from TMI.

Sarah Quigley rocks the mic.

And now, here are the winners of the contest. The winner of C. Lee McKenzie’s SLIDING ON THE EDGE:

Stephanie!

The winner of Sarah Quigley’s TMI:

Lindsay! (c/o her fabulous mom, Lethea!)

And the winner of Cheryl Renee Herbsman’s BREATHING:

Kelly! (Sorry, I missed your comment about putting your last name on it, I’d already left the house for the event when it came in…)

Winners: please e-mail me your mailing address… mary at kidlit dot com. Thanks!