More scenes from a book-tour. Today I had the extreme pleasure and honor of being one of three authors who presented at the Book Expo America Children's Book and Author Breakfast, along with Mitali Perkins and Richard Peck. The session was chaired by Sarah Ferguson, the British Royal who, in addition to writing kids' books, was also recently the center of a pay-for-influence scandal broken by a British tabloid.
Afterwards, we all went over to the trade-show floor to sign books, and, as you might expect, Ferguson was mobbed by aggressive paparazzi. From my vantage point, it looked like they were being incredibly obnoxious, and the enterprising gentleman pictured here actually came over, barged into the queue for my signing, and stuck his telephoto lens between me and the person whose book I was signing so he could get pics of Fergie. When I told him that this was obnoxious, he was affronted and argumentative.
I know that being jerky and shameless go with the territory when we're talking about paps, but just look at the shit-eating grin on display here. It is truly a marvel of perfect vacuous malice. Or, as they say in the New Yorker: "Christ, what an asshole."
Luckily, that was the only sour note in an otherwise brilliant day, during which I met vast numbers of Boing Boing readers. Many thanks to all of you who came up and introduced yourselves! I hope to see more of you at my remaining NYC stops: powerhouse Books, (May 27, 7:30PM) and McNally Jackson (May 28, 7PM).
Next up: Toronto, where I'll be at the Merril Collection on June 4.
