The Southern California Booksellers Association might be the last regional organization to host its annual trade show, but it certainly doesn't suffer any lack of attendance because of it. This year, the SCBA's annual author's feast, held on October 26, drew more than 40 authors and 200 booksellers. The trade show and feast have grown steadily over the past few years, said SCBA executive director Jennifer Bigelow.
The SCBA's noontime authors luncheon featured T. Jefferson Parker (Black Water, Hyperion) and Diane Leslie (Fleur de Leigh in Exile, S&S). Parker treated a lunch audience to the first chapter of his work in progress—his first book to be set outside of Orange County. It's set in San Diego, the author's new home. Leslie, a longtime bookseller at Dutton's Brentwood, charmingly recounted a childhood that included "61 nannies." She also polled the audience about the suitability of the cover of the new book, which continues the story she began with Fleur de Leigh's Life of Crime.
This year's 10th annual feast featured a variety of authors, including Chuck Palahniuk, Alice Sebold, Glen David Gold, Joseph Wambaugh and Ayelet Waldman (A Playdate with Death, Prime Crime).
The SCBA Book Awards were handed out at the feast. T.C. Boyle won the fiction prize for After the Plague & Other Stories (Viking); Patt Morrison won the nonfiction award for Rio L.A.: Tales from the Los Angeles River (Angel City Press); and Any Small Goodness: A Novel of the Barrio by Tony Johnston (Blue Sky Press) took the children's book award.
The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression presentation addressing the U.S.A. Patriot Act (Bookselling, Oct. 21) was the day's best-attended event. Pam Donaldson from Book Connection in Long Beach (and a founder of Santa Monica's Midnight Special Bookstore) talked about being imprisoned in the 1970s for refusing to testify before a grand jury. "What's happening now is even more chilling," she said. "We did not have the gag orders then that the Patriot Act does."
