A good author experience

Marie Bostwick, the author of Fields of Gold, dropped in the other night to sign our stock.

Nice lady.

She took the time to talk with the coworker and I as we bandaged ourselves up behind the counter (stripping 300 lbs of magazines will give you a lot of paper cuts, there was talk of a transfusion), gave us some DVDs for book clubs to use, and gossiped with us about Jane Green (her neighbor).

Booksellers, if you didn’t know, love gossip. Love it. I once went to a training seminar where they kept going on and on about how gossiping at the work place is bad. You shouldn’t gossip about your coworkers. You shouldn’t gossip about writers. You probably shouldn’t even gossip about the latest in the Jen/Brad/Angelina developments. We all sat there nodding our heads and taking notes like good little employees, and then went to lunch and gossiped our heads off. There’s something about working in a bookstore that causes this voracious need for knowledge of any kind, even if it is supposition. We Must KNOW!

So Marie’s talk about Jane Green, despite the fact that neither the coworker nor I make it a habit to read her books, was fun to hear. I, for one, didn’t know that she now lived in the states, and had for many years. The one Jane Green that I had read, I picked up years ago in England, and I was unable to identify with the character (which I think had more to do with my total life experience at that point than the writing). It seems that Jane is continuing to distance herself from the Glam-lit subgenre of Chick-lit, and instead embracing her mommy side (as in Mom-lit, although I’m sure she’ll be playing Mom to her four kids too).

Marie shared some other funny stories, but I think I’ll save them for when I write something on ranking systems.

Until then I may just pick up Bostwick’s book and give it a try. I’m always looking for more recommendations to add to our book club brochure, and her DVD Q & A as well as her offer to do a call-in session makes her a wonderful candidate.