BookCon

Yesterday Lori and I headed to Chicago for our first professional conference as published authors--BookCon...held at McCormick Place. We were flying high as writers having just scheduled to more book signings, one at The Bottle Shop in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, and one at The Furniture Store in Racine, our home town!

 

We both made it to the Amtrak station on time despite a blustery day more like January than May 14. 

For anyone planning a trip to Chicago, and if you don't like to drive, the Hiawatha line or the Metra system are definitely the way to roll. Only an hour after boarding, we were slowing into Union Station in the heart of Chicago.

A 10-minute cab ride to McCormick Place and we were soon joining the throngs of fans, writers, and publishers filling the massive exhibition hall. Every so often a rising round of cheers would erupt from the crowd when a famous author would appear. You'd think someone had just hit a home run to win the World Series, but no, these popular authors, like Divergent's Veronica Roth, were rock stars to the faithful. Above, Lori finds the Harry Potter Muggle Wall!

If you can't make it out, she writes..."Harry Potter means Magic is Everywhere!" She signed our names and...that of Lady Luna!

Getting a marketing tip, we run into someone who offers to show us how construct a Star Wars origami creation. We begin folding and folding and tucking and soon we have an origami Star Wars light saber! It turned out to be the proud author himself, Chris Alexander, who told us of his 12-year passion project that is now the best selling origami book out there! We've got a ways to go, but we're clocked in at around 9 years so far with our love child, our book, Hazel Moon.

So, can you tell my sister Lori and I apart? It's not easy... Which one of us do you think has their face in the Beauty and the Clockwork Beast poster?

All the big publisher top guns were present, Simon and Shuster, Scholastic, Penguin, Random House, Hachette and  so many others. The money they spend creating bestsellers can be astounding, but you can't get to them without a literary agent, and they're nearly impossible to land.

After walking the aisles and collecting a number of free samples, meeting and talking to reps and authors, we went to the panel discussion/presentation by three successful YA (Young Adult) authors who spoke on the subject of adding diversity to YA manuscripts.

Of course, we couldn't help but imagine that we were part of the convention, there as popular authors, so we went through a rehearsal for the day when we would be interviewed by the BookCon crew videotaping some of the interesting people and events taking place!

And, our final run through taken at the Muggle Wall!!!

After the convention we found a lounge, and while enjoying a well-deserved flute of bubbling Prosecco, we had a productive discussion outlining the plot and characters for our sequel to Hazel Moon, Hawthorn Moon, scheduled to come out sometime in 2018! With that, another cab ride back to Union Station, we boarded the rumbling Hiawatha, settled into some quiet reading, and later dozing off, but during the ride home feeling pretty damned (forgive my profanity Father Martin) proud of ourselves!!