Monday Moment(s): The BEA Authors Edition

By choice, I didn't go to very many book signings at BEA 2011, but two of them were pretty special.

Joanne Bamberger's PunditMom was one of the very first blogs I began following, four long years ago, and she's introduced me to a number of savvy political women online. Our paths have crossed in a number of ways; both of us blogged for sites in the Silicon Valley Moms Group, and we met in person at BlogHer'09 in Chicago (where I made a bit of a fangirl out of myself). Her first book, Mothers of Intention: How Women and Social Media are Revolutionizing Politics in America, has just come out, and her signing was my first priority on my first day at BEA.

with Joanne Bamberger/PunditMom; photo by Karen Ballum (with my camera)

with Beth Kephart; photo by Elizabeth Law of Egmont USA (with my camera)

Beth Kephart was my 2010 Author of the Year. I loved the writing on her lovely blog even before I loved her fiction, and we've become friends on Facebook over the past year as well. I nearly jumped up and down when I saw that she was scheduled to sign advance copies of her newest novel, You Are My Only, at BEA...and as it happened, I knew about the signing before she did! I was very excited to realize I'd get to meet her in person, but she threw me for a bit of a loop when she proposed that we make a short vlog together for Armchair BEA (did you get the chance to see it last week, and enter the related giveaway?).

It was much more fun than I expected it to be, and spending an hour with Beth was a joy. She's a beautiful person as well as a beautiful writer, generous and giving and genuinely interested in people. We made the video before going to the signing, and I was able to stick around for the whole thing. I really enjoyed seeing her interact with her readers, and even got the chance to take a few photos, like this one:

Beth with Kathy (BermudaOnion) and Julie (Booking Mama) (photo by me, with Beth's camera, from Beth's blog)

As I said in my Sunday Salon post yesterday, the high points of my week at BEA and BookBloggerCon were all about the people I spent them with; Wednesday morning with Beth Kephart was one of the very highest.