I just scored tickets to the author event of the year: A Conversation With Stephen King. I have actually met him before, a long time ago at the World Fantasy Convention that celebrated Fritz Leiber as guest of honor, but this may be my last chance for an autograph, seeing how Mr. King doesn’t do many book signings and probably no conventions anymore. So, I’m very pleased at this opportunity.

I just finished being a guest author myself, at Evening With The Authors in my small town of Lockhart, Texas. It was a casual and fun event that ended with me selling and autographing fifteen books. Fifteen books was not a chore. But can you imagine signing maybe five hundred books? I’ve been to plenty of book signings, the best of them being at BookPeople in Austin, Texas, and usually there are less than a hundred people there. Signing a hundred books while people wait in line for you has got to be damned hard too, but it’s not five hundred. I feel a little sorry for Stephen King.

Why do we want our books signed? For some of us, I suspect, it’s the perceived added value to the book. We can sell it on E-Bay for more. But for others of us, it’s the knowledge that someone we admire actually left their signature on something we possess, and that maybe they gave us a bit of their personal attention when we talked to them. Years later we re-read their work and remember the meeting. (I will always remember meeting George R.R. Martin, but I’m still buying his books anyhow.)

I wonder what memories meeting me Saturday night and having me sign The Cowboy’s Baby http://amzn.com/B003UYUVZC will elicit later in the life of that book. I heard the food was really good at the event. The weather was great. There were few-to-no mosquitoes. And good company. I also heard that one copy of my book is going to Baghdad where the recipient works at the American Embassy. That is so cool! I hope they like it.

So, go out and meet Stephen King this fall as he promotes his newest novel 11/22/63, and tell him thanks for sharing his stories with us.

WHAT I READ THIS WEEK—Roses by Leila Meacham. The Miniaturist by Jay Bonansinga. Still Life With Murder by Patricia Ryan.