Sometimes Good things Happen

For the past couple of days I've been attending the South Carolina Library Association/Southeastern Library Association's joint convention in a neighboring city. Upon arriving today, I chose to go listen to this lovely lady speak about her 90+ Young Adult novels and her upcoming projects. Who is she? This is Caroline B. Cooney, arguably most famous for her novel Face on the Milk Carton and its sequel Whatever Happened to Janie?. Other titles of hers include Three Black Swans, Code Orange, and The Lost Songs. 

I was excited to meet her this morning. I'll admit, I'm not the most outgoing person, and having been thrust into this conference on my own, I've been struggling to make connections and pass out as many business cards as I can. When I arrived at the session this morning, not only did she come over and greet me, she also graciously agree to take a picture with me. While I didn't say it to her, Mrs. Cooney's writing was influential on me. Arguably, many authors works have been influential in my life, however Mrs. Cooney's novels have stuck with me. Despite having been lacking in keeping up with her works, I can remember reading the first two books of the Janie series back when I was in the eight grade. They were captivating novels and left me questioning. I always wanted to know what happened to Janie after the second book, but never thought anymore of it.

After the session this morning, Mrs. Cooney was doing a book signing for the two free books we got during the session (I believe everyone received a copy of Code Orange and I picked a bag with Three Black Swans in it). I got both of my books signed to me, and they're going in my personal collection as my current job wouldn't really benefit from them, and I have a hard time giving away books. Afterwards, since I couldn't pick a session of interest that was located in the main venue of the conference, I wandered over to a bookseller's booth in the exhibition and purchased the third and forth books in the Janie series, and I'm looking forward to reading them. Both books are autographed, though not personally to me, and I managed to get them for right at $16 for both. 

Sometimes good things do happen, and it's not as bad as it seems.