This past weekend, I attended the American Library Association Midwinter Meeting and Exhibits in Seattle, Washington for a book signing event. I drove down to Seattle from Vancouver, and after a stop at Trader Joe’s in Bellingham (which we don’t have in Canada) to pick up goodies like English toffee and chocolate-covered cherries, I arrived at the Washington State Convention Center with about 10 minutes to spare before the event.
I arrived just as Kristi Anne Wakelin was wrapping up her poster-signing session, and I had the pleasure of meeting her for the first time. Kristi was promoting the upcoming release Dream Boats by Dan Bar-el, which she illustrated. Her work for the book is absolutely beautiful. Here’s a slideshow of all her work for Dream Boats in progress, including first sketches, reference material, mistakes, redraws, and tests, to final art.
As Kristi left and Kallie George, our editor at Simply Read Books, began setting up for my event, a small crowd of Cozy Classics enthusiasts began to line up to buy books and pick up free Cozy Classics posters. The two-and-a-half hour signing event was a great success. It was my first chance to speak with “fans” — people who came to the signing having already seen our books in stores and libraries — and it was very exciting to hear their positive responses to Cozy Classics.
The photo credit for the picture above, showing me and Kallie at the Simply Read booth, goes to Kristi Anne Wakelin. The photo was originally posted on her blog with the caption: “This is Holman Wang, half of the Cozy Classics duo, signing books for a very enthusiastic lineup of classic literature/needle felt fans.” They were very enthusiastic indeed, so many thanks to the ALA and all the conference delegates who came to see us on Sunday!
