Monday, November 19, 2007

Happy Thanksgiving To All (Even The Wicked Oppressing)

I had a wonderful time at NCTE this weekend.

For starters, Saturday night Harcourt treated its writers to dinner with the people who work so hard to make our books a success. We ate at a high class, albeit somewhat noisy, restaurant, three tables of us Harcourters. There were place cards, so we'd know where to sit. I was seated between my wonderful editor and The Actual President Of Harcourt Himself. The Actual President was an extremely pleasant person (unlike a certain other president whose name I will not mention because he might fall into the wicked oppressing category I just wished a happy Thanksgiving to). I'm certain I made an impression on The Actual President because when he mentioned Rocky Colavito, I volunteered that Mr. Colavito had pitched in a New York Yankee game once.

Not every freelance children's book writer of post apocalyptic YA fiction knows that.

After being appropriately dazzled, The Actual President went to sit at another table, and his place was taken by my wonderful editor's wonderful assistant. While there was no more talk of Rocky Colavito, it turns out my wonderful editor's wonderful assistant boxes for a hobby. I've never met anyone who boxes for a hobby before, so I was intrigued. She says she can eat anything now without gaining weight, but that boxing can be painful (I like the first part of that equation, but the pain stuff is enough to keep me out of the ring).

Sunday morning I autographed for an hour, my wonderful editor keeping me company. Although we'd brought some work to do (tiny changes in the galleys), the autographing kept me busy enough we couldn't get to it. Once the hour was up, and I'd ceased grabbing strangers and forcing them to take ARCs of the dead & the gone, my wonderful editor and I found a bench and went through the tiny changes. She truly is a wonderful editor.

After that, I went down to Greenwich Village and had lunch with friends (who admired my well tailored pants suit), after which we saw The Darjeeling Limited. Then I walked up to the hotel where the ALAN Review cocktail party and reception was being held. I foisted myself on innocent English teachers and librarians, none of whom foisted me back (not only are English teachers and librarians very nice people, they don't seem to box as a hobby).

In addition to meeting innocent English teachers and librarians, I met Julie Halpern, a terrific writer I've gotten to know though this blog. She has a website (which is more than I can say about myself, but I doubt that she knows Rocky Colavito once pitched for the Yankees): http://www.juliehalpern.com/

I really recommend her novel, get well soon, which is funny and touching and very entertaining.

Eventually all those innocent English teachers and librarians thought I should leave already, so I got in my car and drove home. I made such good time the Buffalo Bills were only behind by two touchdowns when I got in.

So I have enormous amounts to be thankful for this Thanksgiving, and as always, all of you are high on my gratitude list. I hope you have much to be thankful for as well and that your Thanksgiving is filled with family, friends, pumpkin pie, and anything else that makes you happy.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

You know, Sue, most people remember Rocky C. as being a home run hitter for the Indians and Tigers and I was ready to chastise you (sure she can write seventy books, but does she know her sports?)for your error about him pitching for the Yankees... but then I researched your claim and saw you were right! Of course, he only pitched 2 innings or so, but he did pitch for them.

As Ring Lardner said, "You could look it up.

Glen Anon

Marci said...

She's always right. Especially about the Yankees.

Anonymous said...

If someone was always right, and then they said something that they knew wasn't right and it came true anyway...

(This book idea brought to you by Anonymice, your cat will love them, but they won't remember they ate it.)

Glen

Jen Robinson said...

I'm sorry that I didn't get to meet you at NCTE. You see, I stayed up until 2:30 am Saturday night reading my newly acquired copy of the dead & the gone. Which I just reviewed here, if you're interested. Happy Thanksgiving! Thanks for another great book.

Miriam said...

Okay, now I'm really bummed. Two narrow misses on getting my hands on an ARC of the dead & the gone. I was at the ALAN workshops, not the NCTE conference, and that ARC wasn't in our (very generous) boxes. I wish I'd been one of the librarians foisted upon on Sunday night. If only I'd known which face to throw myself in the path of so as to make mutual foisting nearly impossible to avoid. (Author Author! pins were great, but more and larger name tags would have been even better.) Anyhow, I did my bit to advertise the dead & the gone on YALSA-BK a week or so ago, and I can tell you that the news has a lot of librarians doing a happy dance.

Lee said...

Happy T-G Susan! Thank you for your blog and being so open and generous to your fans.

Susan Beth Pfeffer said...

Hi Anonymous Glen and Marci and Jen Robinson and Reading Fool and Lee-

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you, and anyone else who happens upon this comment. And happy birthday Marci!

Thank you Jen Robinson for that wonderful review (pardon me while I'm lavish with the !s)!!!!!
It's the first official review the dead and the gone has received, and I haven't stopped grinning since I read it.

I also loved the discussion of LAWKI over at YALSA (ooh, it's like a secret code).

In a couple of hours I'll be picking up my extremely elderly mother and driving us to a restaurant in New Jersey where we'll meet my brother and sister-in-law for Thanksgiving dinner. I know it's going to be fun for me, because I'm going to go on and on and on about the books and everything that's happening. It's okay to boast with family.

Oh wait. I boast here too. I guess that means you're all family to me.

Jen Robinson said...

Glad that you enjoyed the review. Thanks for writing the book. It's rare that I'm so consumed by a book world that I'm this excited about reading the next title, and the dead & the gone did not disappoint. I'm not the envy of all of my blog friends, for having already read the book. Thanks!!