Can you believe it’s already less than 365 days until BEA ’13!?! Okay, okay — I know we’re all still recovering from the festival of fun that was #BEA12, so we thought we’d take a moment to share some BEA bites from this year. Why don’t you just sit back, relax, and enjoy the forklift ride….
Setting up a booth for a giant convention show is never a walk in the park — lifting and moving heavy boxes (oh, but they’re filled with books!), laying carpet, constructing shelves, all under those fluorescent lights…but this year — oh, this year, it was leaps and bounds and even arabesques better, with photographer Jordan Matter and some amazingly talented Alvin Ailey dancers on the scene (see Dylis Croman, above!). Besides the forklift, dancers (like Aisha Mitchell, below) took to the air and the rafters of the Javits Center to promote Jordan’s forthcoming book, Dancers Among Us.
I do think that hanging from the Workman clock tower is perhaps the best way to experience Book Expo America. (Though Sarah Daley makes it look easy, the rest of us might need to invest in some crampons.)
For the record, I will from now on be transporting and unpacking boxes exclusively using the technique below as demonstrated by Cirque de Soleil dancer Luke McCollum. Because it does seem to be the best way.
Once the Great Wall of Workman was built (that’s a nearly 20-foot high fortress of books), and the first ARCs (Advance Reading Copies, for you non-book industry folks) were unpacked, it was time to pound the pavement carpeting to celebrate that other great tradition (besides the books) in publishing…the TOTE BAG.
Here are a few of the totally notable totes that we came home with — thanks to Chronicle Books (“See Things Differently” illustrated by Mike Perry), Quirk Books (celebrating their 10th Anniversary!), and Little, Brown (looking quite fetching for 175 years old)….and the Workman tote (of course), celebrating The Art of Procrastination.
And take a gander at the Quirk Books poster that inspired their tote — a wonderful ode, and a sweet stack of books!
And while we’re showing off loot, here’s the ARC bounty that we are so excited to dig into:
Justice at Caldwell Ranch by B.J. Daniels (Harlequin), Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat by Bee Wilson (Basic Books), Return to Me by Justina Chen Headley (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers), All the Right Stuff by Walter Dean Myers (Amistad), The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers (Little, Brown), The Round House by Louise Erdrich (Harper), Zom-B by Darren Shan (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers), Does This Church Make Me Look Fat? by Rhoda Janzen (Grand Central Publishing), So Close to You by Rachel Carter (HarperTeen), White Truffles in Winter by N.M. Kelby (W. W. Norton & Company), Next Time You See Me by Katia Leif (Avon), and The Other by Thomas Tryon (NYRB Classics). And a couple we missed, but are looking forward to reading when the books come out: Burn for Burn by Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian (Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers) and Princess Elizabeth’s Spy by Susan Elia MacNeal (Bantam) — who happens to be the wife of Workman author, Noel MacNeal!)
And because BEA was the real party (like we need to point out our party favors again), we’ll call the Workman Open House the after party — where everyone got to take a photo booth SAFARI. From book editors, to sellers, to publishers, to readers — the savanna was crawling with bookish types!
And at the end of the day, author/photographer Jordan Matter crept out from behind his camera and traded those graceful dancers for his charming editors!
Till BEA ’13…(Seriously, though, our studio is already at work designing the model for the Workman booth for next year!).
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