Once again, we had a blast at the Decatur Book Festival! Special thanks to the organizers, volunteers and everyone who had helped keep the festival clean and safe for visitors! ❤️

So, here are my highs and lows at the DBF 2019.

THE HIGHS

Meeting authors

So of course one of the highlights for me was meeting the authors. To all the fantastic, brilliant authors who came, thank you! You made this book lover extremely happy!

Thank you Nicole Dennis-Benn (author of ‘Patsy‘) , for writing a personalized message and for spending your time talking to me. Sorry I couldn’t stop raving about Patsy! I’m looking forward to reading more from you. Definitely going to be reading ‘Here Comes the Sun’ soon!

Dear P. Djeli Clark (author of ‘The Haunting of Tram Car 015‘) , I have just gotten ‘A Dead Djinn in Cairo’ and can’t wait to read it!

Dear Devi S Laskar (author of ‘The Atlas of Reds and Blues‘) , thank you for signing your bookmarks too! Aren’t they pretty? You asked me where I got them from. It’s from one of my favorite indie bookstores called ‘Read It Again‘. If you’re in town again, please go check them out!

And thank you so much, Kira Jane Buxton (author of ‘Hollow Kingdom‘) for agreeing to do an interview with me!

Guess what. I chased Julia Phillips (author of ‘Disappearing Earth’) down the street. This, I’ll never forget. Ever.

I had to forgo meeting Julia Phillips and Ingrid Rojas Contreras, author of Fruit of the Drunken Tree (due to cranky kids), which absolutely bummed me out, but oh well! Kids take over. They always do. But lo and behold! My hubby spotted Julia as we were headed to the parking lot!!

Hubby: Wasn’t that Julia Phillips?
Me: WHERE?!!
Hubby: She just walked past us.
So I turned around. And I immediately knew it was her even though all I saw was her back. So I chased her down the street, calling her name, like a jilted lover.

And when I finally got her attention,

as they say, the rest, is history.

If you’re reading this Julia, I hope I didn’t scare you chasing you down like that, and THANK YOU so much for stopping and spending your precious few minutes with me! I really appreciate it and your personalized message for me will always remind me of this day! 😘

Another highlight was getting to chat with P. Djeli Clark, his wife and their adorable twins, while strolling around the festival. Thank you for stopping to say hi, sir!

Chatting with other book lovers!

Last year, being pregnant and attending the book fest, some kindhearted ladies offered me a seat while waiting in line for our books to be signed.

And as fate would have it, we were lining up again in the same queue, and I recognized her immediately! We chatted for a bit, and on top of that I was able to exchange emails with two other fans of the festival who attend the fest every year! Yes!

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Going with my family

This year was extra special too, as my toddler is old enough to appreciate being at a festival, especially one that involves books! I asked her what she enjoyed most about it. She said, verbatim, ‘I enjoyed eating lollipop and seeing many books.’ When we came home, she used her ‘phone’ (a TV remote) and started asking me to take pictures of her and some authors LOL

Meeting kind people

Book lovers are the best people, aren’t they? After a kind lady helped take a picture of me and Kimberly Belle, author of ‘Dear Wife’, I took a picture for her too, but she told me to do it before she got her book signed so that I didn’t have to linger, because she knew that I had to hurry back to my two little ones. Isn’t that thoughtful!

Another instance was when a lady helped me save my spot in the line so I can go buy a book that I wanted to get signed.

THE LOWS

Of course, nothing is perfect. So here are the lows.

Missed James Dean’s book signing

We missed James Dean’s book signing 😭My girl was devastated because she’s a big fan of Pete the Cat. We had fun at the parade though!

He had many fans who were there for his presentation, and I MEAN MANY. I overheard a volunteer saying there were about 800 or so! So the organizers decided to limit the number of people queueing for his book signing. The positive side? We got and read his latest book, ‘Pete the Cat and the Perfect Pizza Party’, and like all his other books, we love it!

Missed meeting other authors

It was a pity I wasn’t able meet all the authors I had on my itinerary. I missed Ingrid Rojas Contreras, Fiona Davis, Jennifer Robson, Philippa Gregory, Ibi Zoboi, and Aesha Saeed just to name a few, because, well, kids are unpredictable 😔

And I didn’t get the names of the kind ladies who helped me 😔

Well, that’s it! Have you attended a book festival before? How was it? Please share with me in your comment, or if you have a link about the festival you attended, please include it too. If you haven’t attended one, do you intend to?

Last but not least, thank you for stopping by! And may the power of good books be with you always! 💪