To begin our week of past events, on September 15, 2007, Lorena, Julie, and I attended the Stephenie Meyer book signing at the Coral Gables Youth Center sponsored by Books & Books. Miami was the last stop on Stephanie’s tour and there were literally over a thousand people at the event.
I wrote a recap of the event in my journal, and I have transcribed it here. I can’t believe it was over a year ago since I wrote this. It was way before I met Emily (the Books & Books staff member I talk about below), before any of us had dreamed up the idea of a YA blog, and before Breaking Dawn was anything more than a Word Document on Stephenie’s computer.
So, without further ado, I give you a real account of Books & Books’ amazing book signing with one of YA’s most beloved authors:
During the car ride, Julie and I each took a tube of the glitter glue and put it all over our arms and neck. It started peeling, so we had to reapply.
When we finally got to the event, we saw the line protruding out of the building and onto the field of the Coral Gables Youth Center. My sister started complaining and saying how she didn’t want to go because from what we saw not many people were dressed up.
While we were wearing pretty nice dresses… with a ton of glitter.
Somehow, I got my stubborn sister out of the car and in line. We waited and waited. Some people were probably looking at us strangely because of the glitter.
Then, the line started moving and with every step my heel dug into the dirt.
Eventually, we got into the air-conditioning! Then, the line split in two, one for those who had to buy Eclipse and get a ticket, and those who already had one.
We went down the “already have a ticket” line. At the door a Books & Books employee took our ticket and said, “Nice!” Referring to what we were wearing and the glitter.
We said “Thanks,” and walked to our spot in line. There were already quite a few people there.
We added more glitter glue, including to our faces, since Lorena who was supposed to bring some glitter wasn’t there yet and we figured she might not be there soon.
A Books & Books employee was coming around and wrote my name on a post-it note, and stuck it on the inside cover of Eclipse.
At 4:00, the Q and A started. Stephenie Meyer walked in with a huge cheer and began first by going through questions she had heard multiple times (since this was the last stop) and then asked for questions from the audience.
After 20 minutes of questioning, Stephenie started signing. We were allowed to get as many books as we wanted signed, but only Eclipse personalized. From where we were in line at the time, we could see Stephenie and others getting their books signed, one girl looked like she had at least 7… I’m not sure how she even carried them all. While we were watching this, I realized I completely forgot Prom Nights From Hell existed, which was sitting on my bookshelf; even so, I still had two Twilights (one paperback and one hardcover), a New Moon, and an Eclipse… I began feeling bad for Stephenie thinking of all the books she’d be signing.
We waited and waited. While we were waiting these girls came up to us and one said, “We couldn’t help notice how much you were sparkling. We’re from our school newspaper and wanted to know how far you traveled to come today.” We said “Doral. Not far.” (It’s only about 20 minutes away… it’s just another part of Miami.) She said, “Oh. She,” while pointing to another girl she was with, “had the same idea about the sparkles, but we didn’t have enough.” Then, they left. I saw them put body glitter on after they talked to us, which I thought was pretty rude, but honestly, nothing could compare to the amount of glitter we had with our glitter glue… though it was peeling, but surprising didn’t hurt.
We could tell there were people looking at us, the entire time we were there. They were probably just jealous they didn’t think of glitter.
Lorena joined us while we waited. (Yeah..what’s that? Skipping? Nah they were just… holding my place in line.)We started talking about the glitter and she put some of the glitter glue on too. (My Martha Stewart glitter didn't stand a chance against Elmer’s Glitter Glue.)
The line was moving and we were slowly getting closer to meeting Stephenie Meyer!
At one point, since the line went up and down, someone on the other said either, “Cool glitter” or “Nice glitter,” honestly I didn’t hear it, but Julie did and replied “Thanks.”
-Insert long waiting scene-Then, this other girl came up to us and said, “Is the glitter supposed to be like the way Edward shines in the sun?”
We said in unison, “Yeah.”
And she said, “Oh, okay, I was just wondering.”
Then, she left. But as we watched her leave, she had climbed over this bleacher thing to the other side of the line. We had to laugh and at the thought of how badly she really wanted our answer to climb over a bleacher in order to ask…
We talked about how the glitter was peeling. I said that we were vampires who had a sunburn. I thought it was pretty funny and truthful because if vampires could get sunburns, their glittery skin would be peeling.
-Insert waiting scene not quite as long as the last one-
We were down to the final stretch of the line. I was so excited; we all were!
Then, we finally got to the front where a Books & Books employee was writing post-its for those who they had missed before and to tell people to move to the short line in front of the table.
We walked up to the table. First, someone made sure the book jacket was on the title page and handed the books back to us. We waited for a few more people and finally we were almost in front of Stephenie Meyer!
A lady next to her opened the book for Stephenie and she said hi to us. I reached out to give Stephenie a letter I had written to her; the same lady next to her took it and thanked me. She put it in a small stack of other things people had given to Stephenie.
Stephenie saw the glitter we had on our arms and face and said, “Some glittering vampires.”
My sister and I said, “Yeah”
She said, “Isn’t that uncomfortable?”
“Not really,” we said.
She said, “Does it look cool in the sun?”
“Yeah,” I said very enthusiastically while Julie said the same thing without enthusiasm.
Stephenie said, “I can’t believe you actually put on Elmer’s glue and glitter.”
We just smiled, chuckled, and shrugged.
Then, we turned around after picking up our signed books. My mom took a picture with Stephenie in the background and we left.
I wish I wasn’t as shy as I am and actually talked more to Stephenie, but I am, so I didn’t.
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