Interaction 2005:
The Line for Alan's Signing
This is the line at close to its longest. Alan is off to the right. The woman with her back to the camera near the middle of the line is Sarah Peterkin who was the HarperCollins rep handling this event. She did most of the line management. We had fans help manage the end of the line (Thanks Greg and the rest of you!). I estimate about 200 fans were at the Friday signing in all, and Harper Collins sold well over 300 books. The signing lasted almost 2 3/4ths hours.
After his signing, Alan went back to his room to change for the Chesleys (where he was giving out an award). I asked Joni Dashoff to give him a hand if he needed any help, then I went off to my next panel ("In Memoriam" a discussion of fans/pros/SF folks who'd died over the last year). After the Chesleys, I brought Alan over to the Guest of Honor dinner, which was held at Arisaig, a restaurant serving imaginative Scottish cuisine. It was popular with the con - in addition to the large table of con guests, there was another table of SF editors and writers. It turned out Alan was an old friend of Jane Yolen's, so he went and sat with her, while I joined Sue and David Southwood and Eva Norman at the other end of the table. Excellent dinner, very nice conversations!
I walked to the Hilton with Vince and another fan at the end of the evening, Vince pointing out some of the weird architectural features along the way. I wasn't feeling so hot, so I got another hot toddy, drank it in the Hilton lobby and went home to the Marriott without partying very much.
© 2005 Photo by Laurie D. T. Mann