The book signing at Dark Delicacies in Burbank was the definite highlight of my trip to Los Angeles. My fellow authors Christopher Golden, Amber Benson, and Jonathan Maberry were charming and gracious company, and there was a much bigger crowd than I expected.
Granted, I didn’t know what to expect because I’d never signed at Dark Delicacies before. Not only is it a beautiful store where an ostensibly grown-up Monster Kid like me can feel right at home, but they also have a loyal customer base of ravenous book readers and collectors who come out for the events. I was easily the author with the smallest following there, but the spillover was incredible. Lots of readers who had never heard of me before decided to pick up Dying Is My Business. One fellow, a professional audiobook narrator, was so taken with just the first few pages that he’s going to lobby to do the audiobook narration himself! A woman who was there to get Amber Benson to sign a bunch of TV and movie collectibles from her acting career saw me and Amber chatting, figured that meant I couldn’t be all that bad, and bought my book for me to sign. In the end, the store sold out of copies of Dying Is My Business. Needless to say, Dark Delicacies is now my favorite place to do a book signing ever.
(Someone also brought a copy of the Shivers V anthology for me to sign. I’m always surprised when people bring that one along!)
Here are a couple of photos, courtesy of my good friend, filmmaker Raiya Corsiglia:
The signing table! From left to right: me, Amber, Chris, and Jonathan. Standing at the far end of the table, in yellow, is author and screenwriter Lisa Morton, who took a brief break from work that day to swing by. In the lower right corner, in the pale t-shirt, is the famous actor Paul Gosselin.
Here I am signing Dying is My Business for Lisa, while Amber makes her “someone actually wants this guy’s autograph?” face.
More photos from the event can be found here.
Another highlight of the trip was going out to dinner the next night with Chris, Amber, and actress/director Angela Bettis. Amber and Angela were absolutely charming dinner companions. Chris was there, too.
Now I’m back in bitterly cold Brooklyn and missing the sunny skies of California. They say there’s no place like home, but for a couple of hours at Dark Delicacies, it sure felt like home to me.
