Armchair BEA: The Best Week Ever!

Look! It's BEA!

This has been such an incredible week! So incredible that it has sucked the life completely from me. I'm exhausted, so I apologize ahead of time for any syntactical inadequacies in this post.

The end of last week I sat at home kicking myself for not registering for BEA. The end of this week I'm skipping about on a cloud of soft, fluffy books. I couldn't be happier that I participated in Armchair BEA, and as fate would have it, even got to stop by BEA for a few hours on the last day! So many books, so many new and old faces, so many great conversations, (and so much beer).

What did I learn from all this? Well first, it really is a small world after all. For all those who participated in Armchair BEA, I hope the people you met this week become great friends (I have a feeling that they will). The people you meet in person and online will end up featuring in your lives in unexpected ways. I think it's really easy as a blogger to become emotionally distant at times. As we sit in our different homes, at our different computers, scattered across the world, we may feel disconnected from one another. But really, we are so much closer than we realize. That's something to remember both when we are feeling great and feeling terrible.

Thanks to my unknowing
benefactor: Pat Hendrickson

For when you're feeling down: there are so many of us here for you! We love you! For when you're feeling great: try to remember the ways in which our actions can effect others, both for good and for bad. Being involved in publishing has helped me with this a little because the distance between myself and every book person out there feels smaller as a result. I'm not saying you need to adopt my policy and not review books you didn't enjoy, but just remember that these people are seeing your words and being effected by them. If you keep on keeping on in the book world, more than likely you'll end up meeting them in person (and wouldn't it be super embarrassing when you realize you said something dreadful about them in the great public domain that is the interwebs? And that they probably saw it?)

But that's just what I think. As you may have learned from Tuesday's post, Armchair BEA: My Life Changing Decision the people that I met casually in an unexpected place ended up being the same ones who employed me later. In fact, a wonderful person that I met at a conference across the country two years ago was the very same person that texted me late Wednesday night asking if I wanted to use her guest pass to BEA the next day. It seems like crazy chance, but things like that happen all the time.

But anyways... Here's a wrap up of my BEAlicious week!

Look! It's Nicole from Paperback Princess

Monday Blog post: Armchair BEA Intro!

Tuesday Blog post: Armchair BEA Giveaway: Signed Summer trilogy by Jenny Han! (Two days left to enter!!)

I go down to Books of Wonder and see multiple authors speak on a panel! There is a signing, and I almost overheat from being in proximity to the awesomeness that is Jenny Han. Then I come home and have a great time during the #ArmchairBEA twitter party. (Holla to all my new friends!)

Wednesday Blog post: Armchair BEA: My Life Changing Decision

I decide that pulling an all nighter would be fun. After all, I'm an adult, I don't technically have a bedtime, so since no one is stopping me, I might as well!

5 am: Kelsey collapses in the wake of a Britney Spears dance party.

Thursday Kelsey unexpectedly travels to BEA thanks to the COOLEST PERSON EVER, Jennifer! Her publishing friends laugh at her for being so doe-eyed and overwhelmed. Her badge says Pet Hendrickson on it, which she finds riotously funny.

For those who haven't been to BEA: it's massive. To self-quote, "I never knew there were rooms bigger than Super-Walmarts. This is, like, airport HUGE." More laughing (at me) ensues.

I meet Nicole from Paperback Princess in line for a signing. She gives me an ARC of Fathomless by Jackson Pierce out of the kindness of her heart. She replaces Tahereh Mafi as my favorite person ever.

These four hours are a blur, but I am given multiple totes and they are mysteriously filled to the brim with books. (It should be noted that since I went on the last day, I got a lot of the "leftover" books. People--I kid you not--were rolling out of there with full sized suitcases, so my AWESOME pirate booty looked pitifully small compared to others. Welcome to BEA, Dorothy!) I meet so many incredible people, and I eat a lot of free candy. Adrenaline/coffee/candy/books/giddiness cause me to walk into a wall as I leave BEA, but my unfettered happiness renders me invincible.

My BEA booty!

That night I go to the Soho Press party with Libba Bray, Jenny Han, and other rockstar book-folk. (For any who don't know, Soho Press is launching a teen imprint in January 2013, so be on the lookout!) I proceed to *ahem* take advantage of the open bar. There is much swag, and I may or may not end up at a bar with Soho Press afterwards. Mayhem and PBR Best times ever ensue.

Friday I spend the entire day recovering, rolling about, reading my ARC of Dust Girl, and wondering what in the heck I had been thinking the night before.

Saturday Blog post: Armchair BEA: The Best Week Ever!

To all the wonderful people that I got to know this week: it has been such a pleasure. To all the ones I have yet to know: I'm looking forward to the chance at meeting you! Thanks for sticking with me, even through this post in which I inexplicably go back and forth between first and third person without any particular reasoning.

Best week ever Sponsered By:

Armchair BEA: My Life Changing Decision

Story time!

Working on a cover copy
for a Fall 2012 release!

People wonder how I ended up interning at Random House.

What you probably don't know is that I applied for an internship all six of the Big Six. I didn't get an answer from nada one of the other five, except Random House, and that's because I e-mailed the Editor-in-Chief (now Publicist) directly.

You: How did you do that?
Me: Well, I happened to know her.
You: But how does one become friends with authors, editors, etc?
Me: If sneaking into their homes and leaving dead mice on their pillows doesn't work, then you're probably out of luck.
You: Is that what you did?
Me: I tried that first,* but eventually experienced greater levels of success when I attended a book conference. Specifically, Siren's Conference.

Sirens Conference 2011

Actually, it was a strange coincidence that I ended up there. I was sitting in my bed... at college... in Vermont... and I was trolling around Tamora Pierce's website looking for inspiration for my English thesis when VOILA! I saw that she was going to be at a conference in Colorado two days from then. And I thought, well hey, I should go to that! (It's not like I have classes, or plans, or I don't know, a life...) So while sitting in my bed... at college... in Vermont... I booked a plane ticket for the next day and magically attended this conference that changed my life. The very conference that lead to my English thesis, my Random House internship, this blog, and many, many subsequent friendships and books. The ironic part? Tamora Pierce got sick and didn't even show up, but that didn't matter (because I got to work on her book the following summer!)

Now hey, I'm not saying that you should follow my path in life and spend a thousand dollars you don't really have on an impromptu book adventure. (I think we have already established that you should not be following all of my life choices, because if you were you might be freezing your butt off in the January cold at a gas station after getting into a truck with a German driver who spoke no English and dropped you off somewhere in g-forsaken Belgium at 3 am... But I digress...)

What I am saying is there are a lot of opportunities to get involved off the internet, even if you can't make it to New York for BEA. I'm not the veritable expert on book conventions, but there are loads of smaller ones happening in all kind of places around the country. For you west coasters Siren's might be an interesting possibility since it's near Portland, Oregon this year. I'm sure a lot of you have been to book signings, but if you have the resources, I would absolutely suggest trying to attend an actual conference.

Don't get me wrong, book signings are awesome (I just went to one earlier today), but a lot of time I find they leave a level of personal intimacy to be desired. I chit chat with an author and they probably say something nice, and I say something nice, and then we smile at each other, and your forced to move on else things get really awkward or they file some kind of restraining order. Developing an actual relationship is more difficult, and it takes more time than 30 seconds (unless you're soul mates like myself and Tahereh Mafi, and the friendship-magic happens instantly**) Conferences are all about developing those new friendships, kind of like Armchair BEA has been doing remotely. When else are you going to get the chance to stay in a hotel with Holly Black, Kristin Cashore, or Justine Larbalestier? Or get lulled to sleep with hot chocolate and a short story written and read by Laini Taylor? Or go in the jacuzzi during a snow storm with Sarah Rees Brennan?

Maybe your life is fabulous and you're doing all of these things right now. But if you aren't and they interest you at all, I would definitely suggest looking into a conference. And if any of y'all have any questions for me, I am more than happy to answer!

Who knew that one impulsive decision made while cuddled into my Anthropologie bedspread on a cold October night would put me in New York City 18 months later, just on the heels of a lunch with editors before an evening book signing, planning out my outfit for a launch party the following day. And I'm not even attending BEA!

Pretty exciting, huh?

Siren's Conference 2012

* I solemnly swear I have never illegally snuck into another person's home and left them a creepy present. Probably.

** That's a lie: I have never met Tahereh Mafi. So far I have had to idolize her from a distance, but someday I am convinced she will realize I am her soul sister.

*** I couldn't figure out how to work in a non-sequitur quote today. Boo, you whore (Go! Name that movie!)

Armchair BEA Giveaway! Signed Summer Trilogy by Jenny Han

Whuddup, Armchair BEA-ers? Now that we are all more formally acquainted, I think it's time for step two in our friendship: I give you things. See what an incredible person I am? Slush Sleuth is hosting a giveaway where you have the chance to win all three books from the Summer trilogy by Jenny Han, and hey, guess what, THEY'RE SIGNED!

Cover copy for Summer #1: The Summer I Turned Pretty

Belly measures her life in summers. Everything good, everything magical happens between the months of June and August. Winters are simply a time to count the weeks until the next summer, a place away from the beach house, away from Susannah, and most importantly, away from Jeremiah and Conrad. They are the boys that Belly has known since her very first summer--they have been her brother figures, her crushes, and everything in between. But one summer, one terrible and wonderful summer, the more everything changes, the more it all ends up just the way it should have been all along.

For all y'all who have not read these books yet, let me warn you: they are an emotional roller coaster. At first you were all like "whoa", and we were like "whoa", and you were like "whoa..." (There's your second animated movie non-sequitur this week, for those who are keeping track. Can anyone name that movie?) But seriously, this was me as I read these books:

I stayed up all night to read the first one, and the best friend came out to find me in the living room at 6am in COMPLETE HYSTERICS. Poor guy had no idea what to do, or what to make of it when I cancelled our lunch plans so I could go out and get the next one. See that last picture on the right? Emotionally exhausted but happy. That will be your face too when you read these!

So, if you are ready to have your life ROCKED just in time for summer, just use the Rafflecopter form below to participate! And may the odds be ever in your favor!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Armchair BEA Intro!

Oh haayyyyy Armchair BEA-ers! Thanks for stopping by; I cannot wait to meet y'all and make all the actual BEA-ers jealous of the fabulous fun times we are having this week. For any of you who would like to join me I am going to do as much of this as I can PANTSLESS, just to prove the ways in which Armchair BEA can exceed the actual thing (though I do have a lunch date with some Random House editors on Tuesday, so I might consider putting on pants for that)....

Make sure to say hello here or on Twitter so we can get to know one another! But onto the good stuff, here's my five intro Q&As:

1 Who are you? How long have you been blogging? Why did you get into blogging?
Who am I? WHO AM I? I am the guardian of lost souls. I am the powerful, the pleasurable, the indestructible Slush Sleuth. I'm pretty hot, huh? (A little Mulan humor, for anyone who got that, and apologies ahead of time for anyone who didn't, because I tend to make a lot of non-sequitur pop culture references...)

But anyways, my name is Kelsey. I'm a recent college grad living in the big city. Bright eyed, big dreamer, travel lover, and apparently literate enough to keep some semblance of a book blog going. You can read more on my About Me page. Umm... I think *technically* I posted my first post sometime last August, but this blog didn't really come into being until the last month or so once I graduated college and didn't have so much thesis-izing to do. I interned in the editorial department at Random House Books for Young Readers last summer, and they were downsizing space from something like 40 floors to 17, so they had to get rid of a lohhtt o' books that wouldn't fit, and lemme tell you, despite the fact that I wasn't paid for my internship, I definitely got my money's worth from the box after box of books those lovely people bequeathed me. Sooo, short answer is I had a lot of new books to read and I missed writing coverage for manuscript submissions so I started Slush Sleuth (the title being a reference to the slush pile that I dutifully worked my way through while I was le intern fabulous).

2 What are you currently reading, or what is your favorite book you have read so far in 2012?
I just finished Gilt by Katherine Longshore on audio, and started my ARC of Rachel Hartman's Seraphina. If you look in my sidebar, you'll see my "List of Ten" which is the next ten books I challenged myself to read.

So far this year, I think my favorite new release was Catching Jordan by Miranda Keannelly or Hallowed by Cynthia Hand, my favorite audio The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith, and my favorite backlist the If I Stay series by Gayle Forman.

And yeah, yeah, I know I totally cheated on that answer by giving you five. Full disclosure: sometimes I cheat at Monopoly too.

3 Tell us one non-book-related thing that everyone reading your blog may not know about you.
Ummm... uhhh....

No, I promise I'm an interesting person! I just don't do well on the spot. I'm only witty when I forget to be.....

I have a weird love of pumpkins? I never owned a cardigan until last year and now I own probably 30? Last night I made out with a guy whose name I totally can't remember today? (No... on second thought I probably shouldn't tell you that...)

Oh! Oh! I know! So after high school I took a semester off and studied at the University of St. Andrews, then I hitched hiked across Europe and made what was likely a series of poor decisions with a very concerned ex-boyfriend in tow all in the name of charity. Lemme tell you something about hitchhiking: there are a lot of really dreadful people in the world. But there are also a lot of incredible, wonderful ones as well.

4 Where do you see your blog in five years?
Oh, you know, the ushe. With 6.8 billion followers and all kinds of sponsors and stuff. Or maybe just 6 billion followers since not everyone in the world has access to internet. I like to be practical about these things.

5 If you could eat dinner with any author or character, who would it be and why?
Ohmigosh I love this question! Ok. OK. So, obviously I would invite Richelle Mead, Rachel Hawkins, and Kiersten White AND they would be required to bring along their characters Rose, Sophie, and Evie and we would all go out to dinner and there would be SO MUCH SNARK and it would be FABULOUS and then afterwards we would go out for drinks where we would meet up with the wonderful, hilarious Tahereh Mafi and she would bring along Warner and he would obviously do something psychotic and then I would get to see the Snark-Trio that is Rose/Sophie/Evie lay down the law with bad-ass force/tasie/magic and show Warner who is boss. Then we would all do shots and maybe some karaoke for good measure, because all really sloppy fun drunk nights should involve some level of public embarrassment.