Monday Musings: Soky wrap up

Hey guys!


So this weekend I attended SOKY fest, or Southern Kentucky Book Festival, for the second year and it was just as much of a blast as it was last year.  I talked to lots of fans, authors, readers, and booklovers, met some wonderful people, signed a bunch of books, and basically had a great time.  Can't wait to go back next year.

My table.  Yes, that is Katie McGarry in the foreground. We actually rode up together, along with Kelly Creagh (Nevermore) and Bethany Griffin (Masque of the Red Death). Be jealous. :P

Me and Michelle Madow, another Harlequin Teen author.  She wrote The Secret Diamond Sisters, and she is that cute in real life, too. 

My signing neighbors.

Kelly Creagh with a Poe pillow someone made and brought for her. Now I'M jealous. ;-)

Ember overlooking the crowds at Soky Fest.

So the coolest moment for me happened when a young fan, who I'd missed at a much earlier signing due to the Winter That Would Not End, came in and gave me these bracelets that she had made herself.  (One for Summer, Winter, and Iron.) Her whole family had also come to watch the exchange and take pictures of us, and it was so sweet and the fan was so cute that I gave her Ember dragon in return, and I think I made her cry (happy tears!).  Easily the best moment of the festival.  ^__^

The YA authors of SOKY fest.  How many can you name?

And then we went home.  Or we tried to go home.  Here's the thing about Kentucky; many many miles can stretch between exits, and you can be on the highway in the middle of freaking nowhere.  So when you hit forty plus miles of stand still traffic, there's nowhere to go.  You are literally trapped.  

Stuck in traffic with Katie McGarry. Heeeeelllllp.  Send a helicopter, Harlequin Teen.

Two hours later....  

Omg, it doesn't eeeeeeend. Where's that helicopter, Harlequin Teen?  ;-)

Luckily, both Katie and Bethany are Kentucky natives, and once we finally reached an exit, they knew the secret back roads home through the wilds of Lebanon Junction.   I was a little worried when we stopped at a gas station, and the cashier only took cash, and faint strains of banjo music began drifting though the trees. But we made it out alive.  Apparently Harlequin Teen claimed to have sent a helicopter, but it got lost somewhere in the Nevernever.  Right.  ;-)

-Julie