One of the perks of being a reviewer is a ticket to Book Expo America. You can attend as a reader or blogger; in fact, they have a convention just for you, BookCon on Saturday. I prefer to go on the professional days because it’s a little quieter. New York’s Comic Con fills my yearly quota of INSANE and my last experience of PAX East brushed pretty close. There’s something much more civilised about BEA. It could be the lack of cosplay…
But, there are books. Lots and lots of books. Not that I need any more books. When a random package arrives in the mail for me, it’s usually a book, and my kindle is about to explode. My visit to BEA has only worsened that problem. But it’s a good problem to have. There are also many authors to meet. Many more than usually attend the Comic Con. This year there wasn’t an overwhelming number of speculative authors, but I was more than content with who I did catch up with.
Kelly Jensen 