For the past 7 years I've been volunteering at the National Book Festival with the Junior League of Washington, DC. The DC chapter of JL focuses on literacy and this is one of our most visible events in the community with 350-600 volunteers annually; its also my favorite volunteer event! Most years I have been volunteering as a captain in the book signing lines, which is exactly as it sounds - authors sign their fan's book and I manage moving people through the line with a team of other volunteers to support me. For the popular authors, people will line up hours in advance so you have a lot of time to talk to folks. My favorite experience at the Book Festival was in 2012 - I had John Green as one of my authors. He had @ 1400 young adults in his line. I spent hours talking to the kids about why they love John's books and how they relate to themes and characters. Some of the kids cried when they met him - it was amazing! We got to a point where John had about 5 minutes left to sign books and there were still 100+ kids in the line. He asked to have everyone stand sideways in line and open their books to the page they want signed. He got up and walked down the side of the line, furiously signing the books and he got every single book signed! Huge cheers and applause broke out when he was done. Since then I've been working my way through his books, and now movies! I have become a huge fan and I love that day and experience.
This year I had Al Roker of the Today Show fame. I do not have a good track record of meeting celebrities - I get nervous and tongue tied but I was quite pleased with my Al interaction! He was kind, quiet, and had awesome style!
This was a different experience than I've had in the past because of his celeb status people were as excited or in some cases more excited to have a photo op than to have their book signed. Anyway, despite 12 hours of being on my feet, managing 6 author's signings, and running up and down the lines it was a great day.
We just found out next year's festival will be Sept 24 at the Convention Center - save the date and I hope to see you there!
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