DEATH'S SHADOW SIGNING

report by Lorena (with comments by Erika in brackets)

This event was pretty hectic if you ask me. Brigitte and I were at the store sometime around 5. Erika and Julie hadn’t arrived yet so we continued the task they had started the night before of spamming the entire Young Adult book section with our bookmarks. We worked the Children’s room and when Erika and Julie arrived they went to the 2nd division of YA in the other room. I think I had to go into the back room at least 3 times for stacks of bookmarks. (The bookmarks are for this blog...)

After a good ten minutes of this, the back door opened and Emily came out loaded with Party City bags. We all met in the antiquarian room to inspect what we would be working with. Originally we had planned to wear cloaks but we ended up wearing long black hooded robes, in which we looked, to say the least, like some suicidal cult. Em then showed us the rest of the things she brought. Candles that dripped blood, bloody gauze, votive candles, and the best way to top it off, red & black M & M’s. Oh, and the most amazing CD that contained classic slasher themes (Psycho, Friday the 13th...you name it, it was on there)

We then went to decorate the event room in what we believe would help set the mood for Shan’s horror stories. I believe we did a decent job. A few candles to surround the audience chairs, 2 on the podium, bloody ones on the signing table conveniently next to the M & M’s... (And I tried to wrap the bloody gauge around the podium, but apparently everything I do turns out too neat or nice...) After we felt it was eerie enough we proceeded to our usual crowd the bathroom stage of event preparation. Since I had originally planned to have a cloak, I had brought this weird skirt I had made a while ago. It had this dramatic flair to it, with it’s freakishly long train that managed to get stuck in every door, and stepped on by anyone who wasn’t paying attention (which was me multiple times... Sorry!). I just HAD to wear it. We paled down our faces and tried to get our best “dead” look. Though we ended up looking too much like the Volturri from Twilight.

As we left to cross to the other room, Emily got a call that the dry ice she wanted for our “fog” effect had arrived. It looked cooler outside while we played with the fog than it did as a big bucket under a podium; let me tell ya. Sometime during this, Darren arrived. Emily introduced us to him and his representative. We walked with them to the café, but there was a shortage of space so we retreated to the children’s room for emergency pinning of overly large cloaks. (Namely Erika's overly large cloak that she tripped way too much on prior to said pinning.)After a failed attempt (it actually somewhat worked for me) at that we went back to the event room. Which was actually filled with people. We stayed near the entrance until Emily walked in. We turned off all the lights, and I was in charge to turn them on as soon as Darren was at the podium. And from there it started.

Emily introduced us to the audience, as well as our site, and then let Darren take over. Erika then pointed out that I had forgotten my camera. I ran to the back room, took the tripod and camera and ran back, slowing down only so I wouldn't make too much noise in the room with my heels when I came in.

Darren begun by reading from his new book Death’s Shadow. I’ll give him props. It was a good reading, longer than most, but it was good. He then gave an announcement about upcoming things of interest in the world of Cirque du Freak.

For one, it was being turned into a manga. Second being the release of a Cirque du Freak movie. He expects it released sometime next summer, but the official trailer will be released with the Twilight movie November 21st. He then went into a Q& A about his books , and his life in general. After that he did another reading of a new fantasy book he was working on. This didn’t last as long, and we soon went on post-it duty. (I was on passing out bookmark duty.)

We got through the line pretty fast and didn’t have much to do other than play around, so we whipped out the camera and started taking pictures. After all, why miss the opportunity to take pictures in our attire.

The last one in line was a guy who had come all the way from Georgia. I don’t quite remember how many books he had on him, though I’m guessing it must have been about 12, all hardcover. While he signed Emily introduced us to Darren’s rep who apparently had studied in college with her. We talked nonsense about the signings we had worked, who we had met and whatnot.

Eventually Darren got through the stack and agreed to take a picture with us. We waved our goodbyes and went to the back room to rip off the robes. I was in the bathroom desperately trying to wipe off the black lipstick I had on… I think I still have some left. We dined on gourmet Books & Books café sandwiches and went home after that.

It was a pretty good event. After all, how often do you get to act like a cult in a bookstore?

http://yathenaeum.blogspot.com/2008/10/deaths-shadow-signing-recap.html