BEA TUESDAY

BEA today was wonderful, confusing and exhausting. I met up with Sylvia Day, Eloisa James, Caridad Piñero, Coreene Callahan, Laura Ann Gilman, Maria V. Snyder, Rachel Vincent and Chris Bohjalian, Plus, I chatted with some great blogger buddies and awesome teachers and librarians.

The goodness gets mixed up with the frustrating logistics of having to walk five blocks for a cab because they closed the taxi stand without telling us where to move to.

Here's some pictures from my wonky camera phone!

Sylvia Day in the
"Autographing Area"

A wonky photo of
Maria V. Snyder and
Rachel Vincent at Harlequin

Me with Coreene Callahan - Her FURY OF ICE
released today! She's the young, pretty
woman on the left.

Laura Anne Gilman
at the Science Fiction
Writers' table

Eloisa James!

And streaming continues:

Football and Whole Foods

Yesterday I went grocery shopping after Pilates; a normal thing. Or so I thought. 

Is it Thanksgiving? Christmas? 

No, it's Superbowl weekend in New England and the Pats are playing. 

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

It must also have been a holiday for many people who were at Whole Foods. Not so many in produce , many in the meats, deli, cheese and bread areas. The only two vegetable/fruits selling well, I believe, were celery for the hot wings and avocados. 

Indeed, the Whole Foods staff tells me that the store here in Portland is the top performing Whole Foods in the country. 

That's amazing if you consider the poverty level in Maine ranks in the highest five or so in the nation, especially for kids, and that we have among the highest rates of obesity and cigarette smoking. 

Whole foods (Photo credit: parislemon)

Go figure.  I had an other Superbowl story, but I can't tell it. Damn.

Do I care about the Superbowl, football or sports? I will watch baseball, will watch the the semis and Superbowl if the Pats are playing. But, if we have company, I find it boring. I end up talking and that ticks other people off. I will probably make some chili and read as my husband watches. But, yeah, I care if the Pats win. It means a lot to the region. As we are a poor state, a sports win can help people feel better. Go Pats, but as you watch please eat and drink responsibly.

What about you and football, the Superbowl, etc.?  

AND, Chris Bohjalian's book, SECRETS OF EDEN will be on Lifetime tonight.  I believe it is at 8 PM EST.  John Stamos stars.

Three Survival Tips from Chris Bohjalian

I have yet to read Chris Bohjalian's new Book: THE NIGHT STRANGERS but at a reading in Portsmouth this past Thursday he told us about the research he did for the book which involves a plane crash that doesn't turn out as well as Miracle on The Hudson. He offered us three tips for the best chances of survival in plane crash.  Many crashes could be survivable.

Image via Wikipedia


1.  Keep your knees at a ninety degree angle: The compulsion is to put you feet under the seat but the crash will often break the seat which will then crush or break your ankles.

2. Rule of Five: Arrange seating within five rows of an exit door. I believe he said that the stats show that sitting within five seats of an exit  means you will have the best opportunity of getting out. 

3.  Count head rests: Those little green lights will either be littered with bags, magazines and any thing else that wasn't held with a seatbelt, or even worse the floor may be above you. Instead count headrests as you go to the exit.

My husband flies a lot—enough so that we rarely fly in coach and that he is at the top of the free upgrades list.  I don't even like to think about planes much less plane crashes.  That may be why I am not eager to read that first part of the book. It is a normal worry given the scale of an aviation disaster. The truth is that he is in more danger driving to work every day.  But, I will drum those 3 tips into his head.


Thanks Chris.

CHRIS BOHJALIAN BOOK RELEASE: THE NIGHT STRANGERS

"Shades of The Shining."


—Family Circle


"Put a haunted man in a haunted house. . . and you have a Halloween hair-raiser. But it's more than that. Bohjalian understands how long it takes to recover from unimaginable pain."


—Tim Clark, Yankee Magazine


"A spellbinding, heart-pounding novel. . .this is one perfect book for Halloween."


—Megan Fishmann, Book Page


"All the trappings of a classic Gothic horror story, reminiscent in places of the spousal secrets in Nathaniel Hawthorne's 'Young Goodman Brown,' the thrills of 'Rosemary's Baby,' and the psychological frights of Daphne du Maurier. . .A perfect book for Halloween."


—Keith Donohue, The Washington Post
Above quotes: http://www.chrisbohjalian.com/the-night-strangers

> Bohjalian is parsimonious in the way he issues information, slowly building an increasing sense of dread with each page. Just as important, his denouement is not only unexpected, but so perfect and true to the story, you close the book's covers totally satisfied, aware that this masterful storyteller has done it again. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com

Congratulations to Chris Bohjalian on the release of his new novel, The Night Strangers from Crown Publishing a Random House Imprint

I have the good fortune to have moderated Chris's forum with several other volunteers. Honestly most of the work involved blocking hacker IPs and we eventually realized that Facebook has taken the place of forums for authors. I am excited to actually meet Chris in person this week at the Portsmouth Music Hall Loft.

Nevertheless, I must say that Chris is one of the most congenial and polite people with whom I have ever interacted by telephone or email. And, like most writers he is easily reached via email.  I am looking forward to this book, it promises scary, something I have not read in his books so that will be interesting. And, it promises "witchy" and we all know I like witchy.  I am not going to want to read about the plane crash because my husband flies all the time and one flight he was on had to emergency land after hitting birds on take off.

From Chris' site the synopsis:

From the bestselling author of The Double Bind, Skeletons at the Feast, and Secrets of Eden, comes a riveting and dramatic ghost story.
In a dusty corner of a basement in a rambling Victorian house in northern New Hampshire, a door has long been sealed shut with 39 six-inch-long carriage bolts.
The home's new owners are Chip and Emily Linton and their twin ten-year-old daughters. Together they hope to rebuild their lives there after Chip, an airline pilot, has to ditch his 70-seat regional jet in Lake Champlain after double engine failure. Unlike the Miracle on the Hudson, however, most of the passengers aboard Flight 1611 die on impact or drown. The body count? Thirty-nine – a coincidence not lost on Chip when he discovers the number of bolts in that basement door. Meanwhile, Emily finds herself wondering about the women in this sparsely populated White Mountain village – self-proclaimed herbalists – and their interest in her fifth-grade daughters. Are the women mad? Or is it her husband, in the wake of the tragedy, whose grip on sanity has become desperately tenuous?
The result is a poignant and powerful ghost story with all the hallmarks readers have come to expect from bestselling novelist Chris Bohjalian: a palpable sense of place, an unerring sense of the demons that drive us, and characters we care about deeply.
The difference this time? Some of those characters are dead.http://www.chrisbohjalian.com/the-night-strangers

For an Excerpt: http://www.scribd.com/doc/58896787/Night-Strangers-by-Chris-Bohjalian-Excerpt