Drat. I just wrote a long and high-tech post, full of juicy links to all the authors from last night's panel -- and lost it. I have too much to write today to re-do it with all the bells and whistles.
So here it is, woefully short of linkage:

The panel last night was really fun -- and packed. The woman who was introducing us read each author's bio aloud; everyone else's said things like "Rachel Cohn is the bestselling author of Gingerbread and Pop Princess. She's here tonight to tell us about her new book, Shrimp."
But when she got to me, she said, "E. Lockhart has had nine official boyfriends, if you count the one who asked her to go with him in 7th grade and then basically never talked to her again."

Serves me right. I'll make sure the person doing the announcing tonight has at least a list of my forthcoming books.

A few highlights:

J. Minter, who was sitting next to me, whispered that teen author Blake Nelson was in the audience. Soon-to-be-published YA writer Robyn Schneider came by and said Hello, too.

Natalie Standiford read from The Dating Game sounding SO much like a teenage girl it was incredible. Very funny. Minter and Daniel Ehrenhaft both read sections (from The Insiders and Tell it to Naomi, respectively) that were about boys' friendships, which were really interesting to listen to next to one another. Mary Hogan read a really funny bit from The Serious Kiss. Rachel Cohn told stories about how she was obsessed with Reds (the movie) and Helen Keller. Lauren Myracle, despite being carsick from the horrorshow New York City traffic, read brilliantly and did great voices. There was a raffle and lots of people went home with free books, plus there were giveaway postcards, boyfriend list notepads, and some giant Dating Game folder that I don't even know what it was.

We're doing it all again tonight (Friday) in the Park Slope B&N at 6:30. Hopefully with the addition of Sarah Mlynowski, who couldn't attend last night, and sadly without the darling Mr. Minter.