I wish I'd thought to take some photos once people really started arriving, but in all honesty I was much too busy by then anyway. However, here's a shot from the setting-up period before the party started, showing Vicki and our friend - and hostess with the mostess - Susan with the surprise decoration that she'd brought:
Yes, that's a small, light blue pair of running shoes on that floral display, with one of them missing its lace! How brilliant and considerate was that of Susan to construct, echoing the cover image for No Brother of Mine? Vicki and I were both blown away!
And here's my sister-in-law Meena and I with her incredible contribution to the event: a collage of "Favourite Foods of Famous Authors"!
How Meena ever thinks of things like this (let alone making them), I'll never know! Her grandchildren routinely benefit from her creativity at Christmas time, but I was lucky enough to be the object of her affection this time, somehow making it onto her list of famous authors (my fave foods include Dr Pepper, hot dogs, ketchup and spaghetti). What a thrill!
As for the party itself, we had 33 guests show up, ranging in age from 1 year old to... well, I won't embarrass anyone specific, so let's just say "late 50s/early 60s". Susan took care of all manner of food and drink, freeing Vicki and I up to socialize.
Over 20 copies of No Brother of Mine found new homes before we were done, along with a couple of Game Over editions. I got to talk to a couple people about GO, but really had to bite my tongue about NBoM since no one there but Vicki, my brother Rich and I had read it yet! Oh, the irony of it all!
I was thoroughly distracted once the crowd started to build, and felt bad that I didn't get to catch up with as many folks as I'd have liked to. I spent most of the three hours having very short conversations with whoever could manage to claim the chair beside me before having to give way to the next person waiting, book in hand. And I certainly had little or no ability to follow whatever else was going on around me.
Several people who I hadn't expected to make it showed up and surprised me, and a couple who I'd really hoped would come, didn't. In other words, it was about what you'd expect. I was definitely exhausted by the time it was over, and Vicki and Susan were kind enough to leave me out of the cleaning up portion of the day. I haven't heard from many of the party-goers yet to know how they felt it went, but it was clearly a success from my point-of-view. So much so, in fact, that maybe I'll do one of these shindigs for the next book, too! Of course, that assumes there is a next book! At this point, all I'm missing for that to happen is a story idea, and some characters, and a few themes, and...
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