Live and In Person

• Have you ever met one of your favorite authors? Gotten their autograph?


• How about an author you felt only so-so about, but got their autograph anyway? Like, say, at a book-signing a friend dragged you to?


• How about stumbling across a book signing or reading and being so captivated, you bought the book?

Last year, one of my favorite authors, Anne Perry, came to my local library branch to talk about her writing. I had never purchased one of her books before - even though I had read many - because I always get them from the library. Because I wanted to have something for her to autograph, I purchased the most recent in her William Monk series, Dark Assassin.


In our mother-daughter book club, Sugar Plum and I have had the opportunity to hear authors A. E. Cannon and Linda Bethers speak. Sugar Plum got their autographs in her copies of Charlotte's Rose and Christmas Oranges, respectively. By the way, both authors were an absolute delight!

Many years ago, the evening after I had presented a paper at a conference, my husband and I were leaving a restaurant when another diner stopped me to tell me how much she had enjoyed my paper. That diner was author Linda Sillitoe - and I tripped all over myself telling her how much I enjoyed her writing, particularly the novel I had just recently read, Sideways to the Sun. (I didn't have it with me, though, so I don't have her autograph.)

I do have an autographed copy of Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's Pulitzer Prize-winning book A Midwife's Tale, but I didn't make a fool of myself getting it. She's my aunt - my mother's sister!