Printer's Row Panel Recap

*cross-posted from Author2Author*

Last weekend was the Midwest's Largest Literary event-- 2011 Printer's Row Lit Fest in Chicago. There were 180 booksellers in tents lining the street:

And 200 authors were in attendance as well. I did a panel with a cool group of writers: Ellen Booraem, Ilene Cooper, Brenda Ferber, and C. Alexander London. It was moderated by Amy Alessio. Amy is also an author and speaker (as well as YA librarian!) and runs a really cool vintage cookbook blog and does a lot of great programs as well.

Ellen Booraem and C. Alexander London both flew in for the event (so cool of them!). Ellen from Maine and C. Alexander from New York. Ellen was so nice and her newest book, SMALL PERSONS WITH WINGS, looks great! C. Alexander was really funny and has traveled all over the world as a journalist before writing fiction. I always like seeing Brenda Ferber and sat next to her on the panel. She shared great stories about where her ideas for her books come from. And I was so excited to see Ilene Cooper again. She's written more than 30 books for kids of all ages and she's the Children's Books Editor at Booklist Magazine. On her Web site she says, "Every book published in a year comes into my office and I look at almost every one. All 6,000 of them." How cool is that?!

It was really exciting being with such a great group and as I sat there I realized it was my first official panel. Things I learned:

1) Drink lots of water if you're sitting outside in 95 degree heat. (Yikes, it was hot.)

2) Make sure they have your book for sale at the event. (I usually do check for that at events. I don't know why I didn't think to this time.)

3) Listen closely to the moderator when she's asking questions. (I was thinking about how sweaty and hot it was at one point and missed my question. Whoops.)

4) Talk directly into the microphone (and don't keep thinking about how funny your voice sounds in it.)

4) And have fun! It really takes a lot of pressure off to be with a group of people and have a moderator with pre-determined questions. There is no worry if someone from the audience will ask questions and the moderator keeps things rolling along beautifully. It was a great time!