Yeah, so I guess working in a book shop does have its perks every once and awhile.
Today, Guy Gavriel Kay stopped by the store on his way to his scheduled reading and booksigning at “the competition” and signed a few of our books and chatted a bit with one of my managers as a favour to his publicist. He’s a really nice and articulate guy. Soft spoken and very well read. I listened in to his conversation while working but I was struck by a bout of shyness and didn’t introduce myself or get something personalized. I don’t really know why in retrospect. It wasn’t so much of one of those, “Oh my god. This guy is famous! What do I say? What do I do?” type of moments but rather I just didn’t want to intrude on an existing conversation and I didn’t want to make a fool of myself being a fanboy or by saying something stupid (look, you all know me. I tend to do that sort of thing a lot). So rather than telling him how much I enjoyed Ysabel and his work in general I just listened in while he and my manager discussed the pros and cons of mass-markets vs trade paperbacks vs hardcovers. I think the general consensus was that they all preferred the look feel and weight of hardcovers and trades over mass markets, and while they didn’t like mass markets, they understood the reasons for it from a publishing perspective. And GGK was trying desperately to get his publisher to NOT produce a MM for Ysabel. To which I say. Hoorah! Good job for him.
Anyways. That’s my brush with fame and celebrity, even if it’s just a bookish celebrity. But when I think about it, I’d rather someone be famous for creating something worthwhile than for someone who is famous for just being famous. Yes Paris Hilton, I’m talking about your skanky ass.
Fuck… did I just actually mention Paris Hilton’s name in my blog. I feel dirty now. *shudder* This is what happens when you work in magazines and are forced to handle the gossip rags on a daily basis.