As I may have mentioned, I spent the day on Saturday at the rather splendid GollanczFest, at Foyles bookshop in London. There was a selection of splendid authors taking part in a variety of fascinating, funny, informative panels across the day, with the opportunity to get books signed in the morning and afternoon.
A splendid time was had by all, but at the end of the day (well, more the following day), I was left a little frustrated. With myself, I hasten to add.
You see, I’d spent the day listening to all these fabulously interesting people being fabulous and interesting, and I really wanted to go and say hello, and tell them how fabulous and interesting they all were. There were some authors that I’d read lots of, some I’d heard of but not read, some I follow on twitter (some of whom even follow me back) and some entirely new (but still fabulous and interesting).
But when it came down to it, I found that I couldn’t. Wandering up to a stranger (even a fabulously interesting one) to say ‘hi!’ was just a bit too much.
I wanted to tell Alastair Reynolds that when he retweeted my review of his fabulous Revenger, my blog stats went bananas for the day.
I wanted to say hi to Pat Cadigan, who despite being followed by a ton of people, follows *me* on twitter, and tell her that I think she’s brilliant.
I wanted to tell Joanne Harris how much I enjoy her #storytime on Twitter. AK Benedict how much I loved Jonathan Dark, and to thank her for the guest post on my blog. Tom Lloyd that I’d enjoyed Moon’s Artifice, and that I wanted to read his new book.
The list goes on.
I did however say hello to the lovely Nazia @gambit589, from Orbit Books, who is kind enough to keep me in review copies of fabulous books by fabulous authors. And the event itself was brilliant.
I mentioned this on twitter, and had a chorus of replies saying ‘oh, me too!’, which made me feel better.
Have you found this at a book event, or meeting someone you admire? Any advice for next time?
espresso coco 
I would struggle to go up to people too in that setting. I’m not brave enough. Others seem really confident at that kind of thing. I know someone who went up to Elijah Wood on the street, and mind blanked about where they knew him from so announced, “You’re that guy from that movie!” He had to introduce himself, but he was nice about it. I think try not to worry too much next time, just give it a go. Most people are pretty understanding.
Yeah, at the time I was ‘oh well, never mind’, but now regretting not going up and saying hello!
Ed McDonald offered this advice – say ‘Hi, I loved your book. Beer?’, which apparently works well. 🙂
Offering to buy a drink is a good one!