BEA 2015: Day Two

Happy birthday to meeeeee! That's right...Thursday was Day Two at BEA and my champagne birthday! I was thrilled to be celebrating my 28th birthday in New York City and completely surrounded by books.

I actually ended up spending the majority of the day at the show on my own. It was actually kind of nice because I was able to stop where I wanted, when I wanted, and stay as long as I wanted. I knew one of the things I had to do was the tattoo chain from Litographs. The basics: they take a poem, chop it up, and make temporary tattoos. I got the second last piece of the day for "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot. I told the guy taking the pictures that I wanted to do this that day because it's something fun to do on my birthday. He wished me a happy birthday and said they "just happened" to be having a birthday special and I got to pick out a tattoo to take home with me! (Stay tuned for my haul post where you'll see which one I picked!) How nice was that?

Left: Colouring books are all the rage (yay!) and there was a board to colour!
Top: My Litographs tat and the photos of the chain.
Bottom: The craziness that was the Harlequin romance signing.

I was getting the hang of signing times and such and I learned that Harlequin was going to be doing three signings throughout the day. I went to the romance one in the morning (I think that was the morning one) and the women's fiction in the afternoon. I skipped the insanity that was the YA signing. Harlequin did things a bit differently: you met and got signed books from about six authors all at once. It was nice because it cuts down on the number of lines you have to wait in but it's also tough when, at the end of the day, you have twelve novels to lug home and you're not sure if you want to read all of them! I ended up giving two of them away to two of my roommates and another got left behind since I knew I wouldn't read it. Suitcase space was precious! It was great to chat with the ladies at Harlequin (I loved seeing all the badges from Canada!) and meeting so many of their authors.

Orphan Black was for my mom. Hexed is
signed. And yes, that is Lumberjanes!

Katherine (Ms Lady Critic) and I met up at some point and wandered around together. We ran into someone who told us that there were Saved by the Bell comic books up for grabs. Since we didn't have any authors to see in the next little while, we headed on over to the graphic novel area. Boy, did we do well! We got chatting to a few of the vendors who were more than happy to hand over some titles for us since we're fairly new to graphic novels. A huge thank you to all of them for these goodies!

Lunch on day two was at a diner down the street from Javits. After a crazy huge meal (that was cheaper than eating at the centre), the roommates went home (happily taking my signed Sandra Boynton print with them so I wouldn't damage it - thanks, ladies!) and I went back to the show for the Harlequin women's fiction signing and a few other authors I wanted to see. I had promised my friend Natalie, of Browsing Bookshelves, I would try to get something for her. I ended up having time to get After the Red Rain signed by Barry Lyga for her, yay!

By a happy coincidence, I ended up in line behind Melissa (Chick Lit Central) at the women's fiction signing at Harlequin. Samantha Stroh Bailey came by to say goodbye to Melissa (who was leaving at the end of that day). Melissa wanted a pic of all three of us and, in more "the world is so small", the person taking our picture ended up being Beth of Fuelled by Fiction, a fellow Canadian blogger! The day before Giselle of Booknerd Canada had mentioned me, Katherine, and Beth in a tweet so it was a crazy coincidence. I absolutely adore Beth and I'm so glad I got to meet her in person. I just wish we didn't live in different provinces!

After a long day, I scurried home to change before my big birthday night out. While I was planning for the week, I had mentioned to Tiff (Mostly YA Lit) that I didn't have Thursday night plans. She and Sarah (You Should Read this YA) were planning to see Finding Neverland after dinner out that night. Did I want in? Um, hells yes. Dinner was at The Marshal, an amazing local place where I ate the best mac and cheese ever and the most scrumptious strawberry shortcake. Mmm. Bring me back.

3 ladies out on the town - I loved that the menu had the date on it!
A delicious New York rose cide - Birthday Dessert #3

Next stop: Broadway! I was so pumped for the show and was so pleased that Finding Neverland ended up being beyond amazing. There was laughter and tears (from Tiff...she just couldn't hold it together ;) ) and a great time had by all. (Seriously, see it if you're in New York!)

After the show was birthday dessert #4 (if you're keeping track) - donut ice cream sandwiches! Yep. Such a thing exists. Tiff, who discovered the shop and bought my dessert for me (thank you!!), was a champ and finished hers while Sarah and I had to admit defeat. I just couldn't finish my birthday cake ice cream between a coconut topped donut! But, boy, was it ever good. (Not so good? The guy who decided to start chatting us up. Sarah was too nice, I ignored him, and Tiff, at the other end of the table, was oblivious. Thank you to the shop owners for kicking him out before things got too awkward!)

Left: In front of the sign outside the theatre. Middle: I'm at a Broadway show!
Right: Posing with my gigantic dessert.

I don't think I could have asked for a better birthday. Thank you to everyone who made it such a special day!

Make sure you check out Tiff's day two recap post because she's got some more great pictures and details of our evening out.

In case you missed it...

Planning + Travel Day

Day One - Day at the Show

Day One - Evening Events