ALA--Shannon Style (sorta)

Okay, so this will NOT be as awesome as my BEA recap, partially because my brain is still SUPER exhausted from the chaos of ALA, but mostly because I um... forgot to take pictures of almost everything. So... yeah. SORRY.

BUT I DID GET THE ALL IMPORTANT SHANNON-STANDING WITH THE KEEPER COVER DISPLAY AT THE S&S BOOTH PICTURE:

So... there's that. :)

(Somehow I'm betting you find that slightly less exciting than I do...)

Anyway, I keep trying to figure out how to sum up ALA--since the pictures I'm about to show you most definitely will NOT do that for me. But I'm struggling a bit.

In some ways it was much more relaxed than BEA, since I didn't have to get on a plane or switch time zones or do scary panels where all eyes were on me, expecting me to sound smart. Mostly I just hung out with friends:

With my crit partner Sara McClung and blogger extraordinaire Sasha

Walked around the booths seeing publishing friends, chatting with librarians, and snatching up amazing ARCs to read:

(a sampling. I have more--and yes, that definitely means I have some awesome giveaways coming up, both on the blog and on Twitter)

And went to various mixers/meet-ups:

With Kiersten White and the adorable Sophia Chang, at the YALSA Mix and Mingle.

S&S did some KEEPER promo (you already saw the display in the booth) and gave out another huge tower of ARCs--which was gone in 15 minutes. (I still don't know how to wrap my head around that) So sorry to those of you who'd been hoping to get one and didn't. There will still be some given away at Comic Con--and S&S still has some mailings to do (and I have some contests up my sleeve) so all hope is not lost! And THANK YOU for your amazing support and enthusiasm. You make me feel way cooler than I deserve to feel (especially those of you who stopped me at the booth and had me sign your ARCs. That was too surreal for words). 

And... that's pretty much it. I mean, I did LOTS more fun things and hung out with lots more amazing people--and went to the awesome S&S party on Saturday night, but... without pictures it all just feels like name dropping, which... *yawn*

OH! But there was THIS:

 I FINALLY MET LILA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There are absolutely not enough exclamation marks to convey how exciting it was to finally meet Lisa and Laura Roecker. I've been following their blog since 2009 (!!!!) AND we plan WriteOnCon together so we have literally exchanged thousands of emails. And now we have FINALLY met in person! And they were every bit as hilarious and gorgeous as I knew they would be.

Sadly, we only got to visit for about 15 minutes. But it was EPIC. Here's hoping we meet again soon!

And sadly, that's the last of my pictures. Like I said at the beginning, I was a bit of a fail this time when it came to photographs. So I guess I'll stop here.

I have another post percolating on how bizarre this whole debut-author thing truly is--but I think that's a subject best left for when my brain is working a wee bit better. For now, I need to rest up, and then get cracking on this revision. Bring it on KEEPER Book 2--YOUR TIME HAS FINALLY COME!