Big Opportunity

I'm on Alaska Airlines flight 104 on my way to the Portland Convention Center for the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association book fair. This is an amazing opportunity arranged for me by my publicist at Tor (thanks, Dot!). I am one of twenty invited authors who will participate at the banquet tomorrow evening. We will be ushered from table to table to give the dining booksellers 20-minute pitches about our books. Five tables of nine diners each means that I'll be talking directly to 45 people responsible for stocking the shelves of independent bookstores on the West Coast. I'll be talking non-stop for over an hour and a half. I've spent the last couple of weeks honing my spiel and practicing it in front of patient volunteers.

This time there will be free Internet broadband in my hotel room (Courtyard at Marriott) and free wifi in the lobby, so I should be able to post some pictures (as well as answer email, grade my students' assignments, work on my press kit, and maybe even earn some free-lance graphics income).