Getting in Trouble

This past Friday, I went to Ann Arbor with Amy Rose Capetta for Kelly Link's reading and signing at Literati Bookstore. I love Kelly Link's work. My first encounter with her short stories was Pretty Monsters a few years back, and I was hooked. Her work has appeared in a lot of YA anthologies--Steampunk!, My True Love Gave to Me, Monstrous Affections--and I've always picked up a book with her name on it. Her latest collection is Get in Trouble. I'm three stories in and already in deep, intense, writerly love. And that title! It's the best.

The event was fantastic! Literati Bookstore is a very shiny indie in downtown Ann Arbor with a really well curated selection of books, and a cool personality. (I think bookstores have personalities--it's hard to articulate, but you can feel it when you're there.) The event was in their upstairs space, which they share with The Espresso Bar, and the entire floor was packed for the reading. We met up with fellow VCFA-ers Deb and LoriGoe, and between the four of us we bought a fairly ridiculous number of books and tried not to melt at the awesomeness that is the mind of Kelly Link.

Kelly read from one of her stories and took questions, and the highlight of that whole segment was when she revealed that she had an idea for a YA trilogy. Amy Rose and I gasped in tandem and tried to hold ourselves together because a Kelly Link YA trilogy would just about be the highlight of this decade. Unfortunately, it sounds like we'll all have to be patient for a while still.

The VCFA contingent.

The next day Amy Rose and I headed to Detroit with LoriGoe, where she took us to John K. King Books, Michigan's largest used and rare books bookstore. It was heaven. Old and dusty, with four levels of packed, cramped shelves overflowing with books. We got lost for hours, and emerged with a staggering number of books. I'm adding mine to the already teetering stack.

If you ever get a chance to visit either Literati or John K King Books, do so! They're both very different stores, but so much fun. And read Kelly Link. See her in person if at all possible. Don't like, stalk her or anything. But check out her events.