The time the signing was first

Posted August 10, 2012 by Stacee in Signings | 1 Comment

Emily Giffin has been elusive for me. Something Borrowed was probably one of the first “chick-lit” books I had ever read and I would quickly devour her books when they were released.

When I stumbled upon her tour dates for Where We Belong, I couldn’t decide if I wanted to go to The Grove or to Vroman’s. And after finding out The Grove would be a wristband event, I decided on Vroman’s. Annnnnnd after seeing the crowd pictures from The Grove event, I knew I had to be early.

The morning of the event, I checked the website to see what time it started. I happened to notice that the new book was listed as “probably in stock”, so I called and put one on hold.

Turns out, they had plenty.

I got to the store around 4:30, bought a Snapple and settled in to wait.

It started filling up quickly. One of the best parts of book signings is the camaraderie of the audience. Instead of reading the book I brought, I passed the time having conversations with the people around me and the events manager.

Someone in the group even brought cupcakes with Emily’s covers on the top.  From a bakery in Ohio called Polka Dot Cupcakery

Vroman’s has changed their policy since the last time I was here. Instead of lining people up by row, they now hand out tickets as people arrive and line up numerically.

Emily got to the bookstore at 6:40 or so. She said that since she was early, she would start signing books until the scheduled time of 7pm. She asked if anyone had gum and I offered her a piece since I was in the front row.

She wrangled a guy in the audience to take photos with her professional camera. And would stop to pose with people, getting photos with her camera as well as the audience cameras. If there was someone with a funny story, she went up to the microphone and told everyone about it.

I was the third person to go up. Emily thanked me for the gum and I thanked her for touring. The signing was her 5th event at Vroman’s.

She was absolutely adorable. At one point, she stopped to ask if anyone had a Tide pen because she had a little spot on her shirt. After someone actually came up with one, she asked if it could be used on silk. When the consensus from the audience was no, she told the Tide pen owner to grab it when she came up for the signing.

She also said that everyone needed to photoshop out the stain before posting the pictures on Facebook.

She started talking around 7:15 and mid chat, she got her camera back to to take a picture of the crowd to post on her Facebook.  Emily didn’t do a reading, she says she doesn’t like to do them.  She did talk about all of her books and how they got started before doing a Q&A session.  She provides her own commentary while telling stories, so it was pretty entertaining.

After talking for about 30 minutes, she went back to signing.  And because I had my books signed, I was able to escape the madness of the crowd!

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