Secret Society Girl Launch

I had the privilege last night of attending the book party for Diana Peterfreund's debut book, Secret Society Girl at Home, which is this groovy club in Chelsea way the hell over near the Hudson River. Hopefully, I'll have pictures soon that I can post on the blog. If not, I'm sure that Diana will have pictures as soon as she gets a chance to put them up.

I'd been looking forward to the party all week. After the airline misplaced my luggage, and having to attend the funeral of a dear friend's father, I was in the mood for some happiness. I even went out to Mexx and bought what I like to call the Eva Longoria dress. If you read US Weekly or any of the others, you've probably seen a picture of her in it. It's white, with a funky strap design and a tulip skirt. I didn't look quite as good as Eva in it, but I worked it.

Of course, it rained on the way to the subway stop, which managed not to cool the city down one iota. In fact it felt steamier than ever after the rain. I got to the club fashionably early (meaning on time) so that I could snag a copy of the book. Yippee! Now I have my weekend reading all planned out.

I met Diana's lovely family as well as her boyfriend, Sailor Boy. My good friend Kwana arrived with her husband, and we chatted about recent developments in our writing career. It's hard to believe that it's been a week since National in Atlanta and we'd last seen each other only a few days ago. The first hour they were serving free Dos Equis, but since I dont' drink beer I didn't indulge until a little later.

I caught up with Stacey, a bookseller from Posman Books, a cute bookstore in Grand Central which has a great selection of books, and two debut authors from St. Martin's who just joined our chapter along with their lovely editor. I also got to meet Diana's editor Kerri, who spells her name the same way I spell my middle name. Looking at her and Diana together, they could be sisters.

The wonderful Marley Gibson, author of the Sorority Girl series (Spring 2008, Puffin books) arrived with her husband Mike, webmaster extraordinaire of Diana's site. And I got to chat with Marley and Diana's agent, Deidre Knight, who was so charming. She listened to me pitch what is now my Shakespeare trilogy and was just a doll. Hopefully, keep your fingers crossed, my chapter can work some magic to bring Deidre back to New York to chat at one of our meetings. Particularly since not only is she a wonderful agent, but she's now an author too.

I finally managed to tear myself away around midnight. I would have stayed out later but with work today and tonight, I was plum tired. But not too tired to start reading Secret Society Girl on the way home on the subway (which was blissfully air-conditioned unlike the platform which was like being in the fourth rung of Hell). I had to force myself to put it down so that I could go to sleep.

Thanks for reading!

EKM