I spent most of Tues­day wan­der­ing through the booths at Book­Expo Amer­ica.  I made stops at the pub­lish­ers I reg­u­larly work with as well as some with inter­est­ing titles posted.  I man­aged to miss two of my favorite authors sign­ings and books, but that won’t stop me from buy­ing copies when they release later this year.  I am truly sad that I missed Cath­erynne Valente’s sign­ing and a chance to lay my hands on the next Fairy­land book, The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairy­land and Led the Rev­els There.  She is one author that I would love to meet in per­son at some point, so per­haps next time I will read the sign­ing details bet­ter and not miss out.

This year I didn’t have a plan for the floor and decided to wan­der around some­what aim­lessly.  I man­aged to find a num­ber of good books, and tak­ing a les­son learned in ear­lier years, I didn’t pick up every book that offered.  I came home with far fewer books this year as a result, but I am con­fi­dent that I will read the major­ity as opposed to join­ing my TBR pile and col­lect­ing dust.  There are so many books out there that I seem to rarely fit in a book that ends up in the TBR pile.

Tues­day evening I tracked down an old friend and neigh­bor from my time in Brook­lyn, and we had a won­der­ful evening catch­ing up.  Daisy, his pug, couldn’t under­stand why if my bag smelled so much like her dog-friend, Vin­cent, that he wasn’t actu­ally there.  I need to make a trip with Vin­cent and reunite him and Daisy for a play date some­time.  Or con­vince them to travel down to Austin.

Wednes­day started off with the Ran­dom House Power Break­fast.  It was one of the few events that had a great place/room, amaz­ing food, and great speak­ers.  I met a younger blog­ger, Mag­gie of Maggie’s Book­shelf, and she and I hit it off.  I hope that we can con­tinue to share our love of blog­ging and my love of Word­Press with her as she grows her blog.

After wan­der­ing the city for a lit­tle while, I made my way back to the Javitz Cen­ter to check out the Blog­World exhibits.  A new acquain­tance sug­gested I check out Zemanta, and I spent a while talk­ing with Ryan about their prod­uct.  I’ve used the plu­gin since I returned from NYC and I love it! Def­i­nitely check it out if you want to save time link­ing within your posts.  I also met up with Megan of Sling­shot and look for­ward to talk­ing with her more about their ser­vices to improve my blog as well.

After three busy days in the city, I headed for White Plains to enjoy a relax­ing evening before get­ting up incred­i­bly early for my flight home on Thurs­day.  I have mixed feel­ings on attend­ing again next year, but it is some­what a tra­di­tion that I go to NYC each year so per­haps that will change as time passes.