Back from Buenos Aires
Tuesday afternoon I got back from a week in Buenos Aires, where I got to be a part of the Buenos Aires International Book Fair.
Huge thanks to my publisher, El Ateneo, for the invitation and for arranging things. Especially Marina and Canela, who showed me around and provided translations as needed, along with some delicious food!
Thanks also to the US Embassy, who covered much of the cost, arranged to get me to and from the airport, and generally worked to make sure I had a good experience.
It was great getting to meet so many enthusiastic readers and fans. I am delighted and honored by all of the kindness you showed.
I have a lot of photos up over at Flickr. Some of them were taken while I was on a bus tour of the city, so they may not be perfectly and artistically composed, but I don’t care. I loved getting to see so much of Buenos Aires.
One of my favorite places, naturally, was the El Ateneo bookstore:
El Ateneo was originally a theater, and has been named one of the most beautiful bookstores in the world. I could have stayed there all week, despite not being able to read any of the books. Best of all, they had a nice display of my books in the front as you come in the door.
There’s so much more to talk about, from all the kissing to the fact that my hotel was close to a waterway, which meant I caught about 100 Magikarp. But I need to get back to work, since I’m leaving again in a week and a half, and there’s way too much to do between now and then.
PS, I almost forgot! My publisher must have been happy with how things went too, because as soon as I got home, they sent my agent an offer to buy the second princess book. So The Mermaid’s Madness will be the next of my books to come out in Spanish! 😀
Mike YVR
May 4, 2017 @ 6:16 pm
The library. Not being able to read lends itself to the fantastical.
With years of study, years of echoing, lonely footsteps between the stacks. With endless cursing and crying, the inevitable return and deep sighs of resignation. With pages curled and yellow, with the scent of ink now leeched into his skin. With the halting stories that one day began to flow through his blood and beat in his bones. With all of this he stood at the center of the Library, books finally unlocked and any language now his own. Stood and paged through the oldest of his reading lists, discovering the inscrutable to be children rhymes and laundry lists scattered among treaties to break the World and travel Outside.
But first, without any of this, it had been a Library only of secrets and whispers he had not understood.
Lance Adams
May 5, 2017 @ 9:47 am
I wondered how it was that you were missing dulce de Leche in MI, seeing this post explains it. What a fabulous opportunity and the bookstore is magnificent! Congrats!