{"id":24708,"date":"2016-05-19T00:01:28","date_gmt":"2016-05-19T07:01:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=24708"},"modified":"2016-05-19T00:01:28","modified_gmt":"2016-05-19T07:01:28","slug":"bookexpo-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/bookexpo-america\/","title":{"rendered":"BookExpo America: Dog Books, Funny Books, Holy Books, Swag"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The BookExpo America 2016 exhibit hall, McCormick Place, Chicago. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Barbara Falconer Newhall<\/em><\/p>\n

What do a Buddhist nun, a bald satirist, and a 136-pound Newfoundland dog\u00a0have in common?\u00a0They were all part of the mix at last week’s BookExpo America, held at Chicago’s McCormick Place.<\/p>\n

\"Author<\/a>
Colin Campbell and his dog George attracted affectionate crowds at the BookExpo exhibit hall. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The nun,\u00a0Pema Ch\u00f6dr\u00f6n, was represented at BEA by her book, “When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times.” The popular Buddhist teacher’s book was celebrating its twentieth anniversary at the Shambhala Publications exhibit\u00a0booth.<\/p>\n

The — truly — bald satirist was Scott Dikkers. He’s the founder of what\u00a0claims to be\u00a0the\u00a0world’s first humor website,\u00a0TheOnion.com<\/a>. The very funny Dikkers\u00a0was at BEA touting\u00a0his most recent\u00a0satirical effort, “Trump’s America: The Complete Loser’s Guide.” (Want to see The Donald deftly skewered by Dikkers? Check out my upcoming blog post.)<\/p>\n

The BookExpo Dog<\/h5>\n

The dog? That would be George, a homeless lump of fur and muzzle\u00a0who hooked up with a newly divorced marketing executive, found fame as a surfer dog in California, got a book written about him, and was at BEA last week gracefully accepting the attentions of dog book lovers.<\/p>\n

\"Barbara<\/a>
“Wrestling with God” got good visibility at the Foreword Reviews display, where it’s a finalist. Photo by Jon Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I was there, too, of course, resplendent\u00a0in my “Wrestling with God” T-shirt, handing out WWG bookmarks and WWG business cards and scooping up copies of\u00a0books, books, books.<\/p>\n

BookExpo America is the largest book fair to be held annually in the U.S. It’s where publishers and authors meet face to face with librarians, booksellers and subsidiary rights buyers. It’s\u00a0held in major U.S. cities — New York, Los Angeles and this year in Chicago.<\/p>\n

The Big Five publishers were present in Chicago, showing off their lists and their authors. But so were smaller publishers like Sounds True Publishing, SheWrites Press<\/a>, Skyhorse Publishing and Graywolf Press<\/a>, as were organizations like the Author’s Guild and the American Library Association.<\/p>\n

More about how my book\u00a0came to be at “I’m a Studs Terkel Wannabe — He Captured American Voices.”<\/a>\u00a0 Thoughts on\u00a0the writing life at “The Downside of Things Beautiful — From the Mighty Rose to the Humble Daisy.”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The BookExpo Swag<\/h5>\n

Part of the fun of BookExpo is collecting the freebies, many of them not yet released. These caught my eye. Yours?<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
A baby’s organs donated<\/a> to science. October release.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Free<\/a>
A traumatized dog<\/a> and a traumatized divorce find their each other.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"book<\/a>
This one by a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist<\/a>. October release.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"cover<\/a>
She survived mouth cancer. November release.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"cover<\/a>
From a much-loved Buddhist teacher<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"cover<\/a>
An adult coloring<\/a> book that promises to Zen you off to sleep.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

BookExpo America — the trade show where a Buddhist nun, a bald satirist, and a 136-pound Newfoundland dog were\u00a0equally at home. Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24745,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[70,50],"tags":[1685,1037,1734,134,1735,1728,488,197,1736,69],"class_list":["post-24708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-openers","category-on-writing-reading","tag-bea","tag-book-publishing","tag-bookexpo-america","tag-books","tag-pema-chodron","tag-scott-dikkers","tag-the-writing-life","tag-the-writing-room-2","tag-theonion-com","tag-writing-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24708\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}