Retroblogging: March trip- Lisa Yee in Pasadena

On my very last day in LA, Cecil & I drove to Pasadena for the launch of Lisa Yee’s Absolutely Maybe. I was excited because I’d been hearing pretty consistently all over the internet how awesome Lisa is, and also because I’d actually read the book, which is a more rare experience than you might expect. I think most writers live in near-constant guilt that they a) haven’t read enough of their peers’ novels and b) haven’t read enough of everything else either.

Pasadena is gorgeous. It stands, old, and proud and delicately ornamented, a spiritual and aesthetic opposite to Los Angeles.

We were in a rush, so this is the only photo I managed to grab as we were driving through, but I think it gives a nice sense of what things are like about town.

Lisa gave a very entertaining presentation about her adventures in publishing, and how she came to write a YA novel after a string of successful middle-grade titles.

And we stuck around and talked to Lisa after the big signing, and she was awesome, and I even got to hold the legendary Peepy! I have arrived!

Finally, Lisa did this fun thing where she had everyone pose for photos, wearing Maybe’s favourite hair colour. (See everyone over here on Lisa’s Livejournal.) I only have one photo of this. Unfortunately, Cecil doesn’t like the one photo that much, whereas I am seriously considering wearing this hair colour at ALL TIMES. So I’ve worked out this compromise so I can still show it to you, AND hint at the next thing we saw after leaving Pasadena…