Kevin Sampsell

I’m back from hot and sweaty New York! This past weekend I was there to attend Book Expo of America and to meet various booksellers and talk up my upcoming novel, This Is Between Us.
I had a great time. Here are some pics…

I saw a lot of friends at BEA. One of the first people I saw was Johnny Temple of Akashic. While we were chatting, a woman walked up and said to me, “Hey! I copy edited your book.” I was really glad to meet Anne Horowitz, because she dominated that manuscript.
Soon after that, I ran into various folks like David & Arielle (The Book Doctors), a bunch of Powell’s peeps, Michael Miller of Bookforum, Meg, Rob, and the Tin House gang, and then Rhonda Hughes of Hawthorne.

I also saw the always sweet McSweeney’s booth.

I did a book signing at the Tin House booth on Saturday. By that time, they only had about 30 books left, so they went quick.

These cool little notes were given away too. I can’t believe Tin House had about 500 of these suckers (with an excerpt and ordering info) folded up for me. They must really love me.

After my signing, I met up with Beth Lisick and we hunted down Susie Bright at The Out NYC Hotel. Even though she wasn’t actually staying there, it seemed as if she knew the whole staff already and treated us to drinks, food, and treats. What did we talk about? Mostly parenting… and Mad Men. Hahaha

Besides the conference, I walked around Time Square and Central Park with my new pal Ariel Maccarone, went to see Gary Lutz, John Haskell, and others at Unnameable Books in Brooklyn, spent a whole afternoon at Mellow Pages Library, took a cab with Joseph Riippi, met superhunk Sean H. Doyle, met Penina Roth of the Franklin Park Reading Series, hung out at Soda Bar and had some of their pierogies, ate some Ample Hills “ooey gooey” ice cream, walked around Tompkins Square Park, and did my own reading with some friends for Polly Bresnick’s reading series, Writers Reading to Writers.

I also got some amazing French toast at Angelina Cafe with my friend Marc, who I stayed with on the lower east side. While he was at work one morning, I downloaded some of his awesome music collection (The Drums, some classic old Go-Betweens, Yo La Tengo). Apparently, the Pop Fest NYC was also happening this weekend, so we were both getting back to his place late and he’d tell me about all the cool bands he was seeing. I wish I could have seen The Bats! Thanks for the couch, Marc!

And thanks to everyone else. I’ll probably be returning this winter when the book is out (on 11/12/13).