BEA/NY Day 1

I hope you’re not tired of BEA posts, since I’m just getting started with mine!  I arrived in New York bright and early on the morning of Monday, May 24 – as a matter of fact, my plane took off early and landed early – ready to have some fun.  Of course, it was too early to check in to my hotel, so I left my luggage there, and headed to Times Square to people-watch while I waited for Julie to arrive.   Once Julie got there, our first order of business was to grab a bite to eat, so we headed to John’s Pizza for a great lunch.  It was nice to sit down and catch up a little bit before our whirlwind adventures began!

After lunch, we headed to Scholastic to tour their offices.    We got there early and decided to check out the store and ran into this cute bunch of bloggers:

(l to r: Julie, Serena, The Girl, Anna and Swapna)

Tyler, Becky and Mandy did a great job with the tour.  I was impressed with all of the original artwork on the walls throughout their offices, especially when I found out that it was all created by artists who are eighteen and under.  We passed Rick Riordan who was busy signing books and he was kind enough to pop up and say hi to us.  The adorable Aimee Friedman was nice enough to speak to us, answer questions and sign books for us – she’s at the bottom left in the group photo.

From Scholastic, Julie and I headed over to Hachette to tour their offices.   We were greeted by the lovely Miriam Parker, and it was so good to see her again – I’m so excited for her in her new role!  Hachette’s offices felt a little more formal than Scholastic’s, but the people there were warm and friendly – Reagan Arthur even popped out of a meeting for a few minutes to greet us!

After the tour of Hachette, we grabbed a bite to eat and decided to take advantage of New York Book Week and attend an author panel.  We attended the “Sunny Days and Starry Nights” Summer Reading Celebration and heard several authors read from their books and discuss great summer reading.

From left to right are Jenny Han, Katherine Howe, Michael Koryta, Samantha Bruce-Benjamin, Ilie Ruby and Brando Skyhorse.  After listening to these authors, I’m excited about all of their books!

We knew we could walk back to our hotel from the Time Warner Center – when we came out and tried to get our bearings, we were able to amuse a New Yorker with our lack of direction, but did find someone to help us.  We got back to our hotel ready to collapse since we knew Tuesday was going to be even busier!