Last night, Linda Danis and I did a book signing event at the local Barnes and Noble. We weren’t sure how many people to expect because most of the Bay Area seems to be on vacation right now.

In fact, my youngest son and I walked into Barnes and Noble around 6:30 pm and exchanged a glance with each other: “Hmmm. It’s never empty like this,” we said to each other, a little worried. “Ever.”

But to our delight…by 7pm, the area we were in was packed! Standing room only!

Mostly, friends came (including many Guide Dog puppies-in-training who were excellent listeners, I noticed), but even a few people who had noticed the enormous marquis downstairs and were interested in the topic: “The Art of Writing.”

Barnes and Noble couldn’t have been more gracious and helpful–planning the event, publicizing it, setting it up. We sold through their stock of our books and dipped into our own inventory.

My husband and sons promised to be my assistants and pay careful attention in case I needed them to run to the car to get more books. When I looked down at the table and noticed that all of the books were gone (a good assistant would have noticed that before I did)…my “staff” was nowhere to be found.

Finally, I snagged Allie, my very cute teenaged guide dog friend, to go chase them down. My husband was talking to someone, aisles away, and my sons (including my new son-in-law) were roughhousing down another book aisle.

What is it about boys?!

But I digress.

The important thing is that Linda and I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed the evening and want to thank everyone who came out on a hot August night to hear our journey of book publication.