BEA today….

So no Creativity Friday post this morning! I promise to dish on Book Expo in my next post. In the meantime, here’s a description of my experiences at Book Expo five years ago, right after The Lover’s Path Tarot came out. This was the one which Bill Clinton spoke:

~Monday, June 7, 2004

I’m back from Chicago, tired but exhilarated. Book Expo America was amazing! Since the main buzz regarding BEA was about Bill Clinton, the conference’s keynote speaker, I’ll start there.

I was fortunate to arrive in Chicago early enough to hear Bill Clinton speak about his upcoming memoir, My Life. I had time to check into my hotel, then hightail it over to the McCormack Center with a half hour to spare. I wasn’t sure how many people they were letting into hear him, but I knew that tickets weren’t required, so I figured I had a good chance. And I did get in, after waiting at the back of the longest line I’ve ever been in. Fortunately, it moved quickly.

Bill’s speech was very interesting. Though I’m not much for celebrity worship, I’ve got to admit that it was a thrill to be there among the SRO audience of several thousand publishing professionals. He looked tired but fit, when he finally came out a half hour behind schedule to a standing ovation and thunderous applause. He spoke for an hour — a half hour longer than planned — and was ever the centrist about things. He mainly talked about writing his book, the US’s current situation (he never directly mentioning Iraq, in his diplomatic way). The only area he became empassioned was when he mentioned the Patriot Act, Kenneth Starr and Susan MacDougal — he looked downright furious when he mentioned the detention of Susan MacDougal.

Bill also expressed concern about the dominance of the religious right in Republican policy-making; he felt that W was more of a centrist than his actions revealed, but had to kowtow to the religious right. Bill said, “Maybe I’m old fashioned, but I think we should keep religion separate from government.” He also said that he felt there was an emphasis in the United States on differences instead of what unites us as a country. Above all, he stressed how optimistic he was about our country’s future — he stated over and over that if you look through history, times of great change for the better were preceded by times of great polarization.

It was really fascinating. Clinton such a good speaker, very humble in his choices of language, yet very articulate. Sometimes he was very funny in his downhome Arkansas way. But the overwhelming sense I received from his speech was of an incredibly intelligent man without a snob’s bone in his body, someone who cares deeply about making the world a better place.

The following days (Friday and Saturday) were my signings. The first one was in the autographing area, the second one at the US Games’ booth. Tons of people came and were very enthusiastic about the Lover’s Path Tarot. Many of them also mentioned that The Goddess Tarot had sold very well for them in their stores. It was very gratifying. Also, some men came to get copies of the deck for their girlfriends or wives! That was very cool, and a sign to me that I was expanding my audience. People unanimously remarked how much they loved the art, how gorgeous it was. Elizabeth Kerkstra, my ever-supportive art director, said that they had gotten a very nice response and were planning promotions for the deck.

There was lots of other stuff too. I stopped by the Abram’s booth to say hello, now that I’m an Abrams author. I had a nice chat with Nancy Traversy, the president of Barefoot Books, who published my Book of Goddesses back in 1995. I also met with Leslie Day, my art director from Amber Lotus. We had a wonderful, warm conversation. She’s such a beautiful woman, gentle, funny and smart. I wished we had more time together. We’ve worked together on several calendars, including the latest SageWoman. Leslie was blown away when I showed her the Lover’s Path Tarot. Since US Games had a mock up of the complete kit at the booth, she got the full experience. She seemed stunned at the amount of work I’d done on LPT in such a compressed period of time. I joked that I’d been kept in a cage and fed bread crusts and water as I worked.

We also had lots of fun. The US Games folks, my husband, and myself went out to dinner one night, and had a wonderful time — lots of laughter and animated conversation. My husband and I also did a little siteseeing. We went to the top of the John Hancock Building, to look out for many miles over Chicago into four states. We also went to the Art Institute to see the Joseph Cornell boxes. We also walked a lot, and admired the architecture of Chicago. It really is a beautiful city, and looks more like Paris than NYC. Our hotel was right on the river walk, and close to Lake Michigan.

As you can tell, it was a very good trip.

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