Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Book Signing!

Hello everyone. I’m still busy getting the first book revised. (To date, I have the Prologue + 7 chapters ready for any Agent who’s interested.)

But this time the post isn’t about my writing.

Last Friday night, my wife’s (Lisa) favorite author Sherrilyn Kenyon held a book signing at Cedar Hill’s Borders Books. We patiently waited along with Kenyon's other Minions for her arrival with the minute hand reaching and exceeding six minutes beyond the six o’clock scheduled appearance.

 “Thank ya all for coming. Sorry for not replying to some of you on Tweeter. I trashed another laptop.” She announced after showing up with a smile and a headache, but you wouldn't have been able to tell by this trooper. This is truly an author who loves her fans and was happy answer everyone's questions.

There was one entertaining new fan in the crowd who had a love for dragons and was astonished to discover her favorite character was included in other books she hadn't known about.

Then it was Sherrilyn’s turn to be astonished when another fan asking about typos pointed out that her new book had ‘knees’ where there aught to ‘trees’. “What!?” She exclaimed. “I even had my husband check the galleys, and he’s an English teacher who teaches spelling!”

 Dianna Love Snell, Kenyon’s collaborator in the B.A.D. series, was also there. I asked her if there was ever a time when you guys are not writing. “There’s never a time where we’re not writing," she said. "We get up at 4a.m. every morning.” Ah, the life of a writer.

The fans formed lines according the letter they had been assigned at the register after buying Kenyon’s new book, “Bad Moon Rising”. Since she showed up at the crack of 1:00p.m., my wife had ‘A’ and was among the first group to be called, but sadly at a slowpoke's 20th place in line.

One adoring fan (pictured) brought Sherrilyn a beautifully handcrafted plague dedicated to everyone’s favorite character Simi. Normally fans would show up in costume at Kenyon’s book signings, dressed as Simi with red horns poking through a head of normal looking head of hair, but only a handful came to this one.

 Call 0120, 0120, 0120. And as at every Kenyon book signing there was the raffle. Since the book signing lines stretched almost all the way to the front of the store, Dianna had enlisted the help of an employee, Lindsey, (the girl in the white shirt.) who she dubbed Vanna. Although she was calling out the numbers through a microphone attached to two medium sized speakers perched atop tall stands, Dianna had Vanna stand halfway down the line and repeat the numbers that were called. “Can you hear me now?”

Our turn came. Dianna still hadn’t called out 0120. My book was finished I said, testing Sherrilyn to see how she would handle a fan who thought she would remember them. I took mental notes. “You did! When will it be published?” She was good, very believable. She told me about a Writer’s Conference being held ‘around here’. I stupidly assumed she meant a group workshop and said, I don’t go to those things. I later found what she was talking about and had I known then I would’ve probably said I would rather wait until I was done revising. No harm done.

This was only the second time we’ve attended one of Sherrilyn Kenyon’s book signing. If you’ve been following this blog, you would know that the first was in Redmond, WA, where Sherrilyn informed me that you know when to stop messin’ with a chapter when the Publisher calls for it for the umpteenth time. Okay it’s been a while, so I don’t recall exactly what she said, but that was the gist of it. All and all, even though there weren’t any Tasty Cakes, each time was a great experience and a lot of fun. Next time she comes into town, maybe I’ll be a Minion too.

Thanks for your interest.

Greg Wilhelm-author of The Pendleton Files.