 Nora's
Carolina
Moon Tour 2000
B&N
Clifton, New Jersey
Thursday, April 13
Hello all,
The book signing at the newest B&N (very
Romance friendly!!) in Northern Jersey went very
well. Jeff, the assistant (I think he said he was)
manager and his assistant, Johanna, did a terrific
job -- very well organized and smooth and
orderly...
Nora looked terrific in a black tank-like
(tube-like? I am not very good at fashion reports
so please excuse any errors in attire description,
'k?) shirt and black pants. Her blazer was beige of
a material I don't know how to describe. Her shoes
were black Ferragamos with laces (very nice, and my
kind of shoes) that go up, kinda like what you see
on short boots. She was wearing a necklace with a
diamond studded pendant shaped like a crescent moon
and on the outside, she wore a single strand of
pearls. She wore two earrings -- a pair of diamond
studs and hoop-shaped (?) diamond earrings, one of
them newly bought. She pointed to the new earrings
but from where I was standing, I could not see
which one, probably the hoops. Her brooch -- a
garnet stone within a round, um, something, with a
dangling heart shaped thingy surrounding another
stone, not garnet again but it is yellow. Like I
said, I am not good at fashion reports but I hope
that the above will satisfy Nancy D and the other
fashion mavens in our Sanctuary.
I arrived first, circled the table with the just
published books downstairs 3 times, stopped myself
from going around again for the 4th time, checking
surreptitiously to see if people had noticed my
curious behavior, inspected the rows of discounted
hardbacks, went over to the best sellers display,
was almost tempted to pick up several books but
decided to wait until I get to TTP to get the books
there instead. I went upstairs to check out the
area of the book-signing and saw that the tables
that were there had been moved to the other side to
make way for the rows of chairs. I meandered over
to the SciFi/Fantasy section and then the mystery
section and then the romance section, where Arlene
found me at about 6:20 pm. We decided to then go to
the signing area so we could sit in front of the
table where Nora would be signing.
We were joined by a new Nora reader, whom I had
seen earlier when I was walking around, killing
time. We saw the manager, Jeff, approaching so we
asked him if it was all right to sit there and he
said yes and then he blew both Arlene and me away
when he said that he remembered us from the signing
last year at Paramus. He was getting worried
because so far, only 3 of us had shown up at the
signing site, but we assured him that Nora always
draw a huge crowd especially if the signing was
advertised. He assured us that he did advertised so
we told him not to worry, that they will start
showing up closer to the signing time. Which they
did.
While waiting for Nora to arrive, Arlene and I
were busy doing the Phantom's work and
spreading the word about ADWOFF and TTP. By the
time Nora came, we had several people sitting near
us listening to our stories of the adventures of
the BB/Ns. We even introduced ourselves as two of
those "uh-oh Noraholics" mentioned disparagingly in
the TIME magazine's feature on Nora, which we did
not like for it's negative slant on Romance and of
Nora's CM. We were a motley group of new friends by
the time Nora arrived. Jill and Marion and Luanne
and Diana and another nice lady whose name I can't
remember right now.
Nora arrived a little before 8 with her
entourage. She waved to us when she saw us and Jill
was thrilled and so excited -- the feeling never
gets old because I felt just as excited and I'm
sure Arlene felt the same way too. Hahaha.
Nora was introduced by Jeff, and his
introduction was interrupted with the crowd
clapping their hands every time he said something
nice, i.e. Nora Roberts has been called prolific
clapclapclap and her books have been translated
into 25 languages clapclapclap and her sales have
gone to xxmillions clapclapclap... Then the usual
questions were asked but none about Seth getting
his own book or when Eve and Roarke are going to
have babies. There were several about how Nora
started her writing career, did she have an agent
when she first started, will there be any new
MacGregor books, how did she know she wanted to
write, where she get her ideas, was her first book
accepted, what was her favorite of all her books.
The signing started immediately after the
Q&A and I took a whole roll of pictures for Sue
and ADWOFF. As soon as I get them developed, I will
be sending them to Sue.
We waited until the end for Nora to sign our
audiobooks. CM for me and Sanctuary and CM for
Arlene. We had left our gifts for Nora on the
signing table earlier so at the end of the signing,
I took out the I AM A WHINER purple colored slammer
and I told Nora that if she was feeling frustrated,
she could slam the slammer down on the table or
slam his head and it will whine, "NO FAIR!!!" and
"Boo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo". That got a laugh out of our
Nora. We also met Nora's editor and the rest of the
entourage. Again, the names escape me (need to
start taking Gingko...) but I can see their faces
in my mind's eyes...
Alas, the night had to end and goodbyes and hugs
were said. We went to the Diner for a late
breakfast of mushroom omelet and French fries. Much
as we would have loved to stay there and relive the
night over, we could not since we are leaving early
in the morning for the drive down to TTP. Nora is
leaving New York at the same time and we would
probably get to TTP on or about the same time,
hopefully.
Oh, almost forgot. I asked Jeff if I could have
the card board announcement of Nora's signing and
he gave it to me after Nora had signed it. I did
not know where I got the cojones to ask for it, the
D made me do it, I swear.. Anyway, as Nora was
signing it, she kidded me by saying "beggar,
beggar" to which I whined back by saying "Nancy D
got an apron..." to which Nora answered with a
laugh, "oh yes, she did." Also as we were leaving,
Jeff and Johanna gave us their CM pins so we had
those to remind us of this wonderful moment spent
with "The Legend".
It is indeed A Wonderful Life!
'Nuff said, gotta go pack for the trip and get
those care packs ready....
Edith
P.S. We also met another nice lady, Kathy, who
also stayed until the end. She has all of Nora's
books except maybe PMT. She has also just
discovered ADWOFF and will probably be visiting
more often.
We also met Alice and her friend, (ugh, again,
can't remember her name) and I promised to e-mail
her ADWOFF's web address since I don't think the
links will help as she is on MSN, not AOL.
ADWOFF > NORA'S
TOURS >
CAROLINA
MOON
TOUR > Edith's
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