The first full day of BEA is drawing to a close and it was an eventful one. It was a real thrill to meet up with R.A. Salvatore and get a signed copy of The Orc King and to personally thank him for blurbing A Darkness Forged in Fire. He is a true gentleman.

While meandering about the show I bumped into Scott Sigler, author of the podcast sensation turned major book, Infected. Years and years ago Scott and I and Steve Nagy shared a hotel room at a con so it was nice to see how far we’d come from those humble beginnings.

I stopped by the huge S&S booth and chatted with my publisher, Louise Burke, saw Barbara Walters signing her new memoir, Audition, caught up with Random House #2 Ed Volini (he was deputy publisher at Ballantine back when I started there) and had my first and likely last salmon burger (there’s something just fundamentally wrong about that.) Saw my old boss from Del Rey days, Steve Saffel, who has written probably the definitive book on Spiderman. Also talked briefly with Del Rey’s former head, Kuo Yu Liang, who is now at Diamond Comics.

I sometimes think BEA is as much reunion as anything else. Still, business does get done.