Utah Book Blogger Party... It's a Wrap!

Hey! So we had a party last Friday night and people came! I'm always amazed! We had lots of fun, playing a "guess the character" game, and a silly book swap, and eating all sorts of desserts, (some even healthy ones,) and just talking and meeting new and old people, bloggers and authors alike.

Here are a few pictures we managed to take and/or steal:

Let the party start!
Here we are playing "guess the character." Can you see the sticker there on
Kami's (Kami's Library Thoughts) back?
(at least I think that's Kami?)
And look! There's Natasha from Maw Books! With her beautiful baby!
I also see Penelope, from The Reading Fever, right there in the center.
On the right, I think that is Melanie, Diana's friend (Book Adventures) and
I also see just a bit of Heather from The Secret Adventures of WriterGirl.

Waiting for the swapping to start!
There's me in the purple, next to Kami and Penelope.
I also see Emily (Emily's Reading Room) on the right,
and Kathy from Read This Instead in the chair.
You'll find those with their backs to us down below,
except for Enna from Squeaky Books, who you will not find
anywhere in these pictures.. except I can see her here... can you?!

The whole crowd.

We covered the books for swapping and played the LEFT RIGHT game.
See story below.

We had desserts!

Oh wait! Here's Enna!
She brought a mask, but ended up tangled instead.
Penelope is hoping to untangle her here.

Kami and Emily,
they've been buddies since 3rd grade!

The three with there backs to us in the picture above:
Jessica from Books: A True Story
(Hey and I have an interview with her this week! Come back to see!)
Jenny from Alternate Readality and
Jessica from The Bluestocking Society

Melanie, who says she is a reader not a blogger,
and her friend Diana from Book Adventures

More of the circle!
I think during the swap game?

Hey and look!
It's me and Jenny! :)

Here are some of our author friends:
Nichole Giles
Chersti Nieveen
Jenn Johansson
Sara Raasch
Natalie Whipple
and not pictured
Julia King
Heather Moore

I brought these and they turned out pretty good!
Chocolate Macaroon Squares
(That link goes to the recipe for those interested,
which I actually found in a Nestle book I had.
But I left out the pecans!)

And finally, I thought I'd include this story I wrote for the book swap LEFT RIGHT game... you  know.. that's where you pass your book/present every time LEFT or RIGHT is mentioned? Yeah... that one. It got a little crazy and let me just say, we bloggers and authors had a little LEFT RIGHT issue going on!

But anyway, I thought some of you may get a kick out of this, so here's the story, which I call.....

 OUR BOOK BLOGGING STORY:

Once upon a time, a few people in Utah started blogging about books. At first, they thought they were the only ones! But then one day, a couple of them went to an author event. While there, they stood RIGHT by each other in line to see James Dashner! Even though he wasn’t there because he LEFT to get stuff from his car! But he came RIGHT back and signed things and afterwards, they went RIGHT home to WRITE about the event RIGHT away on their blogs.

Then one said to the other, “Gasp! You were RIGHT by me the whole time and we didn’t know it? We LEFT without saying a thing to each other? We need to fix that! So how about we have a party RIGHT away?”

Several months later, they gathered all the other ten bloggers in Utah and had their first party. And guess who was there? You are RIGHT! James Dashner himself! He talked about a new book he had coming up soon, it was called The Maze Runner. He said, “It’s about this kid who knows RIGHT from the start that he LEFT his memory behind! And now he is stuck in a maze. And all he wants to do is get RIGHT out. So one day, he becomes the runner, and gets out there in that maze and he turns RIGHT, then LEFT, then RIGHT, then RIGHT again, then RIGHT again, and then LEFT, and LEFT and RIGHT. Whew. Finally, he.... well, I can’t tell you because that would give it RIGHT away!”

A few months later, a few more people started blogging so we had another party. It was a crazy day! It was so hot and remember? The city had an event in the park... we knew the bloggers were RIGHT there but we couldn’t get to them because the road was blocked! So we LEFT and went up and RIGHT around the whole park and back down and finally all found each other.

This time we had several more authors join us. We asked them RIGHT away, “So, what’s your book about?” One said, “mine is about a boy who LEFT the family that took care of him and then comes back, quite changed. Grace knew him almost RIGHT away and RIGHT away she was loving him all over again. But wait, is this a good RIGHT thing? Or not?” What book is it? RIGHT!!! The Dark Divine! by Bree Despain

The other said her book was so very serious... about a boy who LEFT all his friends... yep, you are RIGHT, he died. And they all talk about him and have memories of him. Which one of them is RIGHT in their thoughts they have? You are RIGHT! They all are!  What book is it? RIGHT! The Way He Lived. by Emily Wing Smith.

Finally, the other author said her book was about aliens, and that’s all I can tell you because that book never came out. Instead, a few years later, we got to read her book about a girl who LEFT her family, but then came back, (but not RIGHT back) and has six months to make everything RIGHT again before she LEFT again to go be in the Everneath with a very scary dude. Opps, I gave that title RIGHT away! Sorry Brodi Ashton!

Then we had a couple of parties at Golden Corral where we were nearly RIGHT on top of each other because now it’s so crowded with all our bloggers and authors and WRITE-rs! At those parties, we brought books to swap and everyone LEFT their books on the table where RIGHT away there was a mad rush to get the popular ARCs. We also LEFT our fancy blogger cards, and we LEFT our email addresses and Twitter names with each other. Yes we LEFT the place with lots of new blogger friends, and went RIGHT home and got on Twitter RIGHT away to share pictures and stories with each other.

Now, there are so many bloggers, it has LEFT our spreadsheet in the dust and we can’t keep it all RIGHT anymore! But at least, now when we go to the book festivals, and author signings and launch parties, we know each other RIGHT away, whether we are standing RIGHT by each other or way over LEFT across the way... now we can say hi and talk books to our hearts content and everything is RIGHT with the book blogging world!

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Ah, yes... we had fun! Thanks to all of you who came! To those that didn't, we'll see you next time!