Once Upon a Signing: Killian McRae author of 12.21.12

Once Upon a Book Signing

Today help me welcome author Killian McRae to this fun meme. Killian is the author of 12.21.12. and if you were part of the live chat last week, you know she has quite a few great ideas she is working on. So lets see Killian's memorable signing.

Killian: Picture yourself as a somewhat artsy, non-conforming sixteen-year-old who lives in a rural community two highway exits before the middle of nowhere. Because you are counter-cultural, your musical taste tends towards Grunge Bands (because it’s the early 90’s and they still haven’t gone mainstream) and 19th century German operas. Your brushes with celebrities have been limited to once being in the same rather large room with a former Miss America. So, one day you’re just minding your own business , reading about Che Guevara or Tolstoy or someone as similarly misunderstood as you, and your mother asks you to go to the closest Barnes & Nobles (a 50 mile drive, because it’s two highway exits after the middle of nowhere) to attend a book signing. You scoff and say the only good writers are dead writers, but you love your mom, and so you go.

Did I mention you’ve dyed your hair bright red? Yeah, you’ve done that too.

So, you get to Barnes & Nobles- by the way, the first time you’ve ever been in a bookstore so big, or a proper bookstore at all- and the line is the only thing you’ve seen bigger than the store itself. It twists and bends and wraps around the shelves like a fifteen year-old contortionist named Ming. But then you see there’s a CD section with – Hallelujah!- earphones where you can listen to the latest releases, and bless Glenn Miller’s ghost, there’s a jazz section. NO ONE listens to jazz where you come from, so you leave your mother in line and trot happily back to the temporary oasis in the desert of culture that is your life.

Forward two hours, and your mom’s still somewhere between the middle and almost-there in the line. You’ve had your fill of Wynton Marsalis and Tony Bennett so you figure you’ll stand and talk with her for a while. She’s getting nervous because there’s still at least fifty people ahead of her and it’s three-thirty. Everyone was warned that the author is on a tight schedule and can’t stay a minute past four. Finally she’s a few places from the front of the line, and you know it’s going to be close just to have five second of face time with someone who will forget the name of the person she’s signing to the moment after her pens lifts off the page. As soon as you mom gets up to the author’s table, you step aside, because you don’t want to distract what you know will be a very rushed moment.

You turn away, and then someone calls out to you, “Hey, girl, come on over here for a second.”

You swore you’d keep it cool, but as you turn around and start walking towards Naomi Judd, you turn to goo that she’s taking the time. She asks you how you’re doing, tells you how pretty you are, and asks you how you got your hair that brilliant color which, by the way, is the same color as hers. You don’t know much about this woman, and you certainly have no intention of reading her book, but you’re so touched that someone famous and pressed for time would take thirty seconds to talk to you that it renews your faith in humanity. Okay, that’s a bit much, but it does make you feel special, and that’s what you were going for all along, wasn’t it? Book signings don’t changes lives, but they do change perspectives. I’ve gone to other signings since that first one nearly twenty years ago, but never has an author made more of an impression on me. It’s kept me going back ever since.

That is such a great story Killian. I cant remember the 1st time I walked into a large bookstore myself. Have you ever met them again? if you ever do you must tell them your story. Now everyone make sure to say hello to Killian either on her Blog, Facebook or Twitter. Here on the blog we are giving away a hard copy of Killian's book 12.21.12 if you like to 

If you would like for your book signing to be featured on the blog, then send me a EMAIL with 1-3 pictures and a blurb.