Utah Book Blogger Party: A Report

So I thought I was arriving to the restaurant a little bit early in order to prepare a couple of smallish little things, but when we got there, several bloggers were already there! Welcome! It wasn't long before that room was hoppin'! Wow, we had a lot of people come! The room capacity said 62, and I think we had it to it's absolute capacity!

At first, everyone was just talking and mingling and finding their spots... until Natasha arrived and said, "People! Go get food!" So we all did. At my table there was Cari from Book Scoops and her husband Michael. Also two new-to-me bloggers Cindi from A Utah Mom's Life and Annika from Munchkins and Manuscripts. They are friends in real life, and it was fun to meet them, and realize that Cindi knows my sister in law! :)

Next to us were Cory Poulson, author of Reiyalindis and his wife, along with Jonene from The Wonderful Obsessions and her friend Angela. At the table behind me was Kim from Good Clean Reads, Alison from So Many Books So Little Time, Penelope from The Reading Fever, Lisa from The Book Worm's Library and Sheri from Belle's Book Blog.

And that's pretty much my little corner with which I interacted.... and when it got even crazier as the evening went on, the more overwhelmed I became, so I just stayed in my spot! Ugh, bad Suey! It was fun though, when we calmed the roar of conversation just a bit in order to do introductions. Lots of new faces and bloggers to get to know! And WAY too many to list here! (Check out the list Natasha has made over on our Ning page if you want to see who some of them were!) We were especially honored to have picture book author Rick Walton join us... along with several with increasingly famous authors (Bree Despain, Lisa Mangum, Matthew Kirby, Emily Wing Smith) Thanks to them all for coming! But hey... James Dashner.... where were YOU???

One thing was for sure, the aspiring authors have discovered us! Wow, there were lots of those types. It made my head spin! Good luck to you all, and let me know when the book comes out and I'll read and review! Really.

We took some pictures. I thought I'd video them into a slide show... a project which seems easy enough, but is not as you can probably guess. They aren't that great, but perhaps you'll get a feel for the event. Better and more thorough pictures can be found at Maw Books Facebook page.