Patrick Taylor
07-27-2007, 1:04 PM
I admit that I'm pasting this from my blog because I don't want to retype the whole thing, but want to share it with you guys. Here goes....
On Wednesday night, my daughter and I went to the local booksigning by British author Jasper Fforde (http://www.jasperfforde.com/), well known internationally for his Thursday Next series of novels. (In fact I got my wife signed UK first editions of the whole series a while back because she's such a big fan) My wife had the great idea to take him one of my pens, and even volunteered her favorite acrylic cigar because she thought it went well with the cover art on his books. So off we go, pen in hand, and we get there to find that the place is packed with hundreds of people and all copies of the new book are sold. I grabbed an older paperback of his and we got in line.
When we got to the front my daughter hands him the pen, and says "my dad made this for you." He removes it from the sleeve and say "Wow! Brilliant!" (how british is that...) He then says "Monte Blanc... ppfffff!" and tosses aside his other pen. He used mine to sign all the books for the remainder of the line. He made sure to have my contact info so he would know who gave it to him.
To top things off, as we were leaving a salesperson found another box of the new books. So we grabbed one and got back at the end of the line! We got up to the front and I saw that he was still using my pen long after he thought we had left, which means he wasn't just being polite. He thanked us again as he signed the new book.
So... of course I forget to bring the camera to this event (doh!) but luckily the fan club (http://www.jasperffordeffanclub.com/) president was there with her excellent camera, and she was kind enough to take some photos to send me. She did a great job, here's a photo of us with Jasper. (I blacked out my daughter because we don't post public pics of the kids online.)
http://www.beadsandcoves.com/uploaded_images/910594045_5be9659a18_o-776784.jpg (http://www.beadsandcoves.com/uploaded_images/910594045_5be9659a18_o-776787.jpg)
And Jasper signing a book with my pen:
http://www.beadsandcoves.com/uploaded_images/910499501_24728ef763_o-794944.jpg (http://www.beadsandcoves.com/uploaded_images/910499501_24728ef763_o-794948.jpg)
http://www.beadsandcoves.com/uploaded_images/910500423_c099f443fd_o-789357.jpg (http://www.beadsandcoves.com/uploaded_images/910500423_c099f443fd_o-789362.jpg)The FC president also mentioned that Jasper commented on how much he liked the pen, both the look and feel, so that's quite a complement coming from someone that has to use a pen for so long at one time.
On Wednesday night, my daughter and I went to the local booksigning by British author Jasper Fforde (http://www.jasperfforde.com/), well known internationally for his Thursday Next series of novels. (In fact I got my wife signed UK first editions of the whole series a while back because she's such a big fan) My wife had the great idea to take him one of my pens, and even volunteered her favorite acrylic cigar because she thought it went well with the cover art on his books. So off we go, pen in hand, and we get there to find that the place is packed with hundreds of people and all copies of the new book are sold. I grabbed an older paperback of his and we got in line.
When we got to the front my daughter hands him the pen, and says "my dad made this for you." He removes it from the sleeve and say "Wow! Brilliant!" (how british is that...) He then says "Monte Blanc... ppfffff!" and tosses aside his other pen. He used mine to sign all the books for the remainder of the line. He made sure to have my contact info so he would know who gave it to him.
To top things off, as we were leaving a salesperson found another box of the new books. So we grabbed one and got back at the end of the line! We got up to the front and I saw that he was still using my pen long after he thought we had left, which means he wasn't just being polite. He thanked us again as he signed the new book.
So... of course I forget to bring the camera to this event (doh!) but luckily the fan club (http://www.jasperffordeffanclub.com/) president was there with her excellent camera, and she was kind enough to take some photos to send me. She did a great job, here's a photo of us with Jasper. (I blacked out my daughter because we don't post public pics of the kids online.)
http://www.beadsandcoves.com/uploaded_images/910594045_5be9659a18_o-776784.jpg (http://www.beadsandcoves.com/uploaded_images/910594045_5be9659a18_o-776787.jpg)
And Jasper signing a book with my pen:
http://www.beadsandcoves.com/uploaded_images/910499501_24728ef763_o-794944.jpg (http://www.beadsandcoves.com/uploaded_images/910499501_24728ef763_o-794948.jpg)
http://www.beadsandcoves.com/uploaded_images/910500423_c099f443fd_o-789357.jpg (http://www.beadsandcoves.com/uploaded_images/910500423_c099f443fd_o-789362.jpg)The FC president also mentioned that Jasper commented on how much he liked the pen, both the look and feel, so that's quite a complement coming from someone that has to use a pen for so long at one time.