Book Signing With Erin Morgenstern

The great Erin Morgenstern happened to visit a (somewhat) local bookstore, Unlikely Story, and Mum and I nabbed tickets. It was a fun night and I wanted to share a few pics!

First of all, this was only my third time in Unlikely Story and either they’ve recently added the brooms and books ceiling display, or I’m just too short to have noticed before. I’m not sure what had me looking up while we were waiting in line, but I’m glad I did!

I’d like to do this in my future home someday!

Anyway – we had a little time before the event started to grab drinks. The store actually had a signature drink, The Bee’s Knees, modeled after a drink in Starless Sea (that I totally remember reading about, yep) and it was pretty tasty, if you enjoy lemon and gin. And lemon. I believe there was honey in there technically, but I couldn’t taste it. Mum went back for round 2 after we found seats, but it was already sold out so we settled for chardonnay. I tried to take a cute picture of my glass and the lights but it really didn’t work out.

We could have sat closer, but didn’t know what we were doing, since neither of us had been to an event before, so we didn’t. Being short, it’s hard for me to see over everyone else, so I spent the whole time leaning awkwardly to peer through people’s heads and I had to use my zoom to take the above shot. But the important part was listening. It was a pretty casual chat between Erin and another author from Maine (I’m a bum and don’t recall her name, nor had I heard of her before) – they did talk a bit about both books, inspirations, writing habits, food, and most importantly, cats.

Oh also, there was a local shelter there! I didn’t get to pet the cat, but they had a very good boi walking around with his harness. CATS.

Anyway, here’s me standing like a dweeb in front of Erin. I did actually make more of an effort to chat with her than I do with Chris Moore, but I still felt a little star-struck. As usual, I get all caught up in my head thinking about how any praise I give, they’ve heard a million times before. And I don’t like to ask questions, because she just spent an hour sitting in front of a crowd asking questions. And I don’t want to run my mouth and say something stupid, because I try to avoid doing that! So mostly I just stand there. They had a store employee standing by to take pictures, which was cool and I appreciate that she took several pictures, of the two of us and Erin alone. Which is good, cuz like, I don’t need that many pictures of myself!

Ah, much better!

I did it for the ‘gram.

Here’s the signed book! I chose my UK edition of Night Circus because my Starless Sea pre-order came signed already. I wasn’t sure if the store had any rules on how many books you could have signed and I feel like it’s good book event etiquette not to bring “too many.” I kind of go by Chris Moore rules (since that’s pretty much the only other signing event I’ve been to) – he’ll sign as many as you want, but only personalize two, and if you have a lot you have to wait at the end of the line. I don’t want to be that jackass with an armful of books holding up the line and cramping the author’s hand, so I feel like 2-3 books is the most one should bring. But hey, that’s just me. Plenty of people had stacks of 5 or 6 books in their hands. I will admit to being a little judgy about that though. I mean, she only has two books published! Yes, there are multiple editions of each (and I own multiple editions of each), but I just don’t think it’s worth making everyone wait to have 6 books signed.

ANYWAY!

Here’s a toilet:

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There you have it, a little bit about the author signing. It was a good night but a late one and I’m not used to being out that late on a work night. Also! While Mum and I were standing in line waiting for our books to get signed, a lovely young lady came up to me and I was like ??? and she was like “I don’t mean to be a creeper, but are you Milliebot Reads?” and I was like “??? yes?” and it turned out to be Amanda, a mutual follower on Instagram! How exciting! I was shocked to be recognized, honestly, but as Amanda pointed out, I stand out a little with my hair and tattoos. It was awesome to accidentally meet Amanda in person though, and as she’s a New Englander, maybe we’ll meet up again in the future!