Cho Chang (troubledwater) wrote in whatprice, @ 2009-04-24 09:07:00 |
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Entry tags: | adrian pucey, augustus pye, cho chang, hermione granger, meg odgerel -bolormaa (npc), neville longbottom, penelope clearwater, phillip hughes, samrat amarnath, viktor krum |
Open Thread: A Friday evening booksigning
Who: Cho "Katie" Chang and anyone who feels like dropping by.
What: Katie Chang signs the new paperback edition of her short story collection Quisling Clinic.
Where: Forbidden Planet, London
When: Evening of Friday, April 24, 2009
After the reading and the Q&A and before the signing got into full swing, there was a brief lull in which Cho was able to down some water, stretch, and take a few calming breaths—which breaths she needed a lot more than usual today, as there'd been more than one unexpectedly familiar face in the crowd. Still, she'd gotten through the passage from "'T'ain't Nobody's Business" with only a couple of stutters, and the questions had been relatively easy and she didn't think she'd choked on any of them, so by that standard, things were a success. There were maybe sixty? seventy? (Cho had always been arse at doing crowd estimates on sight) people or so, not the worst turnout she'd ever had, nor the best. Not counting the assorted people in there doing their everyday shopping for comics, books, and all things Doctor Who. Considering the event was for a paperback release of a short-story collection that had come out in hardback the previous year, it wasn't bad; had it been a new novel, there would've probably been more. Maybe next year ... if she delivered her manuscript on time. She tried not to think about the looming end-of-June deadline as she marshalled her pens—two fountain pens, two silver paint-pens, and a small pile of Sharpies—and smiled up at the first person in line, who was, thankfully, not one of those unexpectedly familiar faces. Instead, it was a pale Goth boy with dyed black hair, skintight jeans, and a motorcycle jacket. "Hi there. What's your name?"
"Er. Alec. I'm Alec. It's really—I mean, I'm—" He paused and held out his shiny new paperback copy of Quisling Clinic, which was opened and passed along to Cho by one of the Forbidden Planet employees. Someone else had already done their time-saving job and stuck a Post-It on the flyleaf with the recipient's name printed out in block letters. The boy stammered a little and finally said, "I loved Last Year's Model."
"Aw, thank you. I was really proud of that one." On the flyleaf she wrote: To Alec - Katie Chang and added a little doodle that was a stylised representation of the pendant that was a key McGuffin in Last Year's Model. "Thanks for coming, Alec."
The boy swallowed and grinned, and gave her a little wave before turning to go.
One down, several dozen to go.