My last Book Expo adventure was Sourcebook’s party, and if I needed another reason to fall in love with Chicago, I certainly got it.
The party was held at the John Hancock-tower on the 94th floor, with a breath-taking view of Chicago and the lake. I also signed books at the party, and I can safely say I have never signed books with such a magnificent view in the background.
I think the pictures speak for themselves.
Book Expo America is different than the Book Expo in Sweden, and I’m not just talking about the size of it all. For most of the days, the Book Expo is a trade fair: the visitors are booksellers and publishers and librarians and agents and book bloggers. Only on Saturday is it open to the general, reading public, in the Book Con. In Sweden, it’s the other way around: only the first day is dedicated to trade people, the rest and the majority of the days being focused on the reading public.
Now, the size. For the last thirteen or something years the Book Expo America, BEA, has been in New York. This if the first time in a long time that they’d ventured out of Manhattan. This has meant a somewhat smaller size, which seems ludicrous for me. Smaller! That is not the word I would use to describe my experience of it. Apparently there’s also a lot more room. Well, it certainly proves that all things are relative.
In fact, the size of it all forced me to press myself against a wall when I first got there, awed and slightly nervous. “I’m surrounded by booklovers”, I repeated to myself several times, and after that I found my way to Sourcebooks booth, which was beautiful and full of books and booklovers, and the world was all right again.
My adventures began straight away, when Heather, Senior Publicity Manager, grabbed me to record a few seconds of a video. “I want you to just say adjectives about your book, such as heart-warming or fun and so on. We’ll edit it afterwards, so just keep talking.”
I stared at her. I am Swedish, for God’s sake! That’s like… bragging. Since it’s a marketing/PR-sort of thing, I might stretch to actually calling it: “Sort of nice” or “partially fun” or “some people have said that they liked it” – but that’s not just adjectives. “I’m just gonna have a cigarette before”, I said and fled in panic.
While smoking, I mentally went through what other people had said about my book, and tentively tried it out aloud, whispering: “Beautiful? Charming? Book-ish?”
It did not come out in a very convincing manner, but after saying it ten, fiften times to myself, it sounded somewhat better.
In the actual recording, I managed a few adjectives before staring blankly at poor Heather, who stage whispered: “Beautiful! Fun!” etc. to me. She’s going to have do a lot of editing, I can tell you that.
My next BEA experience was signing books at Sourcebooks booth, and people actually came! There was a line! I did not have time to see it, since I was busy writing things in books.
And oh! Speaking of adventures, after that I attended ABA (American Booksellers Association, an association for independent bookshops) who held a Bookseller Celebration Luncheon. I think I was invited because my book had been a #1 Indie Next Pick during the year. It took me a while to find the place where it was supposed to be, but in that I was not alone. The invitation said only the Skyline Ballroom, but I think that room had been divided into smaller rooms, so that when I and a few other participants looked inside it turned out to be the temporary office of Amazon.
“Well, I’m not having lunch with them“, said one of the independent booksellers.
The lunch itself was great fun, but let’s go straight to the amazing stuff: Richard Russo, very deservedly, was awarded the Indie Champion Award. So I was in the same room as Richard Russo.
Richard Russo is one of those authors that I read when I want to be reminded about the beauty of stories and language and people. I try not to read him when I’m writing, because I am also reminded of the undeniable fact that I’ll never be as good. But that’s okay. Because that means I can spend time with his character without having to think of them myself: all the responsibility and hard work falls only on him, while I can relax back into my own, simpler books.
I did not talk to him. I thought about the idea, but in the end I decided I didn’t want to bother him. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: sometime it’s such a struggle being Swedish.
But then agian, I have been in the same room as Richard Russo.
I think that’s the perfect way to end this blog post.
I was in Chicago for the Book Expo, but my experience of it began on Wednesday with Day of Dialogue, a gathering of librarians separate from the Book Expo but held in connection with it. For me, it was just one more reason to love Chicago, even though I guess it would have been lovely anywhere.
I was part of a panel together with some lovely people from Sourcebooks, talking about the process of writing, translating, editing and marketing a book. Sort of a way to illustrate the whole impressive chain that a book travels through before arriving at a library. It was such great fun, but then again, I was talking to a room full of librarians, so how could it not be absolutely amazing?
Afterwards, I met up with a friend of mine who had come to Chicago to visit me. Me, I’m a lazy tourist. I tend to want to pretend I live in a city, so I seldom do any of the traditional tourist-stuff. It seems strange to me to travel somewhere just to surround yourself with tourists. My friend on the other hand is very organized. He came to Chicago with a list of things to see for our one free afternoon there. This list included: a river architectual tour, the Sears tower, a bean, a park and Boystown. “What do you want to see?” he asked me. “I want to have pizza”, I said. Obviously.
And that was basically what we did. We had pizza at Giordanos. Walked to the park with the bean, that did turn out to be great. The bean was surprisingly fun, and the park absolutely beautiful. It was so beautiful that we msised the river tour-thing we had planned for five pm, but when we were just walking around idly trying to think up an alternative, we found another tour boat that was just about to head off. It was probably fate, because the boat was almost empty, the guide an hilariously nerdy girl, and the fog lifted the minute the tour started.
Unfortunately, I can’t remember any of the information she imparted in her fast, nerdy way, but I have never found architecture so much fun or so fascinating. Part of the reason why Chicago is such a fascinating city, architecturally speaking, is of course that the enitre city burned down. The only thing that was left standing was a water tower close to our hotel on Michigan avenue. Rumour had it that the enitre fire was started by an Irish immigrant woman. Had that been just a rumour, a foot note on a guide tour, that wouldn’t really have mattered, but the rumour was first published by a major newspaper in Chicago right after the fire, and the Irish immigrant woman was named in the article. The city was then rebuild, using the ingenuity and the expertise of architects from all over the country as they flocked to the empty space available in the city.
“So it all ended well, in a way”, said our guide about the fire.
Except for the immigrant woman, of course. She was ostracized for the rest of her life.
The tour took about 70 minutes and I was sorry to get off that boat. Next time I go to Chicago I’ll take it again.After the tour it was quite late on a Tuesday evening at the end of a foggy day, so thanks to some sort of magic, Sears tower was practically empty. Sears tower is not called Sears tower anymore, but our guide assured us no one from Chicago bothered with the new name, so I won’t either. I find it very reassuring that a company can pay a lot of money for the name rights for the tallest building in the Western hemisphere and then be completely ignored.
The tower formerly known as Sears has see through little cubes that you can step out on, so that it seems like you’re standing on air ofter a hundred floors of the ground.
My friend forced me out on it, so naturally I made him go first. Just in case.
But I lived to experience the Book expo another day.
I never fall in love at first sight with big cities. It happens all the time with small towns: I drive through them, or stop for lunch, or arrive at the hotel, and I feel immediately at home.
Not so with big cities. Big cities requires time for me: I have to approach them gradually. Find a street I like, or even a specific café, and then perhaps a certain part of the town. The infinite possibilities of a big city often make me hesitant and strangely recultant. Perhaps it’s some sort of awareness that it’s impossible to make that city into your own in just a few days, or even weeks: you need to live there to really be a part of it. And I want to be a part of towns I visit; I want to imagine myself living there, feeling what it would be like, eavesdroping to converastions, wandering around and taking it all in.
So no one was more surprised than I was when I found myself falling completely for Chicago within the first twenty minutes of me leaving the airport. I was not ready for love. I was tired and warm and uncomfortable and had been jostled about by O’Hare airport. I was only relieved to be in a car, with a nice, quiet driver.
And it’s not like I hadn’t seen a beatiful skyline at night before. The skyskrapers, the lights, I had seen it in a number of downtown areas before. But there was something special with this one. Perhaps the fog, slowly creeping in. Or perhpas it was the dark nothing-ness where the sea was. Maybe it made everything more manageable.
I don’t know. But however it happened I fell in love with Chicago right there and then, and everything I experienced in the next two days just strengthened that feeling.
My next stop in Iowa was Oskaloosa, where I attended a lovely book luncheon organized by lovely bookshop The Book Vault.
It was my very first book luncheon, but as you can imagine, it was great: nice people and a nice lunch and talking about books. When I think of it, I can’t see why we don’t have more of those. It’s an interesting idea with daytime events.
After the luncheon, naturally I visited the bookshop, and it turned out that there used to be a bank there, so the book vaults were litterally vaults. You see me here in front of the Crime Vault. They could have locked me up there forever and I wouldn’t have minded.
