We promise our delay in sharing our meeting with Becca isn't due to lack of enthusiasm. Not even close. It was amazing! Becca is amazing! She even posted about meeting us on her blog. You can check that out
here. Pretty cool to read that she felt the very same we did about hanging out. We aren't just two crazy fans. lol OK, well maybe a little, but we're pretty normal most of the time.
So here's a recap of how our fabulous day went.
We live about two hours from Philadelphia so in order to make it downtown for 8:30 we left around 5:45 AM. Ugh, considering Jenn and I both typically stay up into the wee hours of the morning this was a scary prospect, but it was much easier than I thought considering we had a darn good reason for waking so early. The trip went by so fast it literally felt like we had been in the car for half an hour (or five minutes as I said in my massive exaggeration) and we made it to the convention center/hotel area in plenty of time. Note that I said plenty of time. That was until we realized we were waiting in the lobby of the wrong hotel! In case anyone is wondering there are two Marriots next door to each other in downtown Philadelphia. Which unfortunately meant we were a few minutes late for our first meeting of the day with the fabulous Emily Meehan, Executive Editor at Simon and Schuster, who worked with Becca to bring HUSH, HUSH to the world.
Luckily Emily was still waiting for us in the right hotel lobby so we got to sit and chat with her for a bit. I have to admit, as someone who dreams of becoming a published author myself, meeting an actual big time editor had me a bit nervous, but she was wonderful and even thanked us for creating a fansite for HUSH, HUSH. Thank us? Emily is the one that deserves a big thank you considering she acquired HUSH, HUSH. Book Divas featured Emily's thoughts on just that. Check that out
here. It's so fun to hear how much she loved the book at first read too. Becca is one lucky lady to land in the hands of such an incredibly talented editor who loves her story just as much as we do. So just to recap, Emily pretty much rocks.
It was all so exciting that I'm not sure who popped in next, but after chatting with Emily for awhile we had two more guests appear...the author herself and Anne Zafian, VP, Deputy Publisher at Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing. We'll get to Becca last, but meeting Anne was an awesome surprise. She stopped by and said to Emily, "Are these the Fallenarchangel ladies?" To which we all said "Yes!" So fun hearing ourselves called that. It was incredible to hear from Anne on all the inside stuff on how ARCs (advanced ready copies) work, including the huge amount they had for HUSH, HUSH, and her thoughts on our site. Anne was wonderful. And while we would have loved to have more time with both Anne and Emily, who were down to earth and fun to talk to they had to run, but just having the chance to meet them in person and know how much they appreciate Fallenarchangel. com was amazing.
Emily, Becca, Anne
Once it was the three of us we immediately started chattering about just about everything you can imagine. Of course there was the obvious HUSH, HUSH stuff and writing, but we talked about our kids, husbands, (only nice things of course) and food. We got so busy talking right off the bat that we forgot that we had planned to eat breakfast together! Luckily we were in downtown Philadelphia so we walked outside and a block away was the Reading Terminal Market and can I just say WOW. That place is out of this world. I've been to Philly plenty of times and never made it there, but it's definitely on my list of places to visit again. The three of us were slightly overwhelmed at the endless rows of vendors with everything from sushi to cupcakes and everything in between. And I mean everything. Just WOW. Needless to say, we grabbed some tasty pastry type treats and headed back to the lobby (which was a pretty swingin' place packed full of all sorts of teachers, writers and publishing folks) and continued talking about everything under the sun.
You'll be happy to hear that we managed to make time for Becca to sign some of the beautiful and sparkly HUSH, HUSH posters to stash away for future contest prizes. As tempting as it was Jenn and I refrained from hording them and I assure you we will be giving them away at some point, so keep your eyes open for that. Ahh, and then there was the attempt to shoot a video with the three of us saying hello to all of you. *takes a break to laugh hysterically* Yeah, that didn't go so well, but it sure was a hoot. Jenn and I are trying to salvage something to post but in case we don't, just know there were several factors involved that made it a bit challenging...no one to hold the actual camera which meant one of us had to run away from it and up to it while it was filming, several moments of laughter during the "serious" parts, and my personal favorite, the fire alarm going off. (no worries it was a false alarm, though we did gather Becca's things in a hurry and took off for the fire exit)
Jenn, Becca, Rebecca
Becca was kind enough to show us how to get over to the massive (and I mean MASSIVE) exhibit portion of the conference where the publishers were set up before she met her mother in law for lunch. Again, WOW. I've never seen so many teachers or books in one place! We didn't stick around long but one of the fabulous folks at the Simon & Schuster booth gave us her pin that said "I can't keep it HUSH, HUSH. Ask me why." Love it!
So as you can see the day truly was perfection. Being that I'm an aspiring writer I think its safe to say that it was more exciting meeting these three incredible women than it would be meeting a movie store or super famous musician. And though Jenn was in heaven at our last visit to Philly when we saw and got the autographs of the band Blue October, she's right there with me.
A special thank you to Anne, Emily and Becca for taking the time to meet with us and for your support, excitement, and oh yeah, bringing us HUSH, HUSH.
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