The FNC Meets Jay Asher

This is also posted over at Frankie Writes. I present to you our adventures in New Jersey, Meeting Jay Asher, Getting Interviewed by a Reporter, and Reading to the Audience.

Despite the torrential downpours we were having here, Donna and I were determined to make our way to Bridgewater NJ to go to Jay Asher's reading and signing for his book 13 Reasons Why , which has been on the New York Times Best Seller list for 40 weeks (which is FANTASTIC).

I also had my first experience driving with a GPS and I have to tell you that I did not like it at first! I was totally freaked out having this non-corporeal voice yell things at me like "Turn left in 500 yards" and I'm like "OMG what makes 500 yards? Aahhhh!" But I got used to it and it got us to the Borders Jay was reading at, although it started to get loopy at the end and tried to tell us we had reached our destination when we were really at a police complex...hmmmm. Maybe this GPS realized the connection I have to the law and bookstores...

Anyway, we made it to the signing just in time (which is usually what we do, we're not quite early birds or fashionably late people, we're sort of the people who would walk up the center of the aisle and bump into a chair at the same moment Jay Asher is walking up and being introduced...oh wait that was just Donna, hehe).

All right, well here was the first bit of excitement. Because 13 Reasons Why is told from the perspective of Hannah Baker, a girl who committed suicide and Clay who had a crush on her and their POVs kind of intermingle through the text since Clay is listening to Hannah speak about why she killed herself on audiotape, Jay needed a girl from the audience to volunteer and read Hannah's part while he read Clay's.

Guess who read Hannah?

I did! Donna volunteered me and so this is the story of how I kind of did an official book reading in a book store with a best selling author (good practice I think for when I get to do this later when I'm lucky enough to be on a book tour).

Check out Jay's version of events Here! He posted a cool picture and the craziest thing was he remembered meeting me at the SCBWI Winter Conference in NY. I asked him to sign my copy of 13 Reasons Why and told him it was actually my second copy because I broke the first. True story. This is pretty blasphemous for a librarian, but I lent his book out so much that one day I just opened it and the thing went to pieces. He forgave me though.

So after the reading, Jay talked a lot about his journey to publication and how he came up with the idea and then perfected it. We got to ask a few questions (Donna was great at this) and then we got in line for signing and to take pictures.

So...while we were waiting in line we got interviewed by a reporter from the Star-Ledger, New Jersey Local News Service. We're not quite sure where this interview was going, but if we made the paper, we'll know Tuesday and let you know about it :-)

Here is a pic of me, Jay and Donna.

Afterwards we spent some time in our favorite section, YA! And then we made the journey home, making one pit stop through a completely darkened little neighborhood that screamed serial killer all so we could find a Panera, because girls have got to eat:-)

Hope you enjoyed our book signing adventure!