A Day of Celebrity Encounters

Today started with the Reading Reptile's 14th Annual DNA Children's Literature Festival. Each year Pete and Deb bring in 6 national children's book authors/illustrators for a day of presentations to kids and a day for professionals. This year it was Adam Rex, a personable Kate Klise, a most impressive storytelling Patricia Polacco, a fun Judy Sierra, a scholarly Uri Shulevitz, and a uniquely awesome Brian Selznick. They are all great in their own ways and I especially love Sierra's Monster Goose, but it was Adam Rex I was really excited about. He has excellent books, a genius sense of humor, and is just plain fun. The bonus was learning that during the ten years he spent trying to break into the business he supported himself doing art for D&D and Magic: The Gathering. Stuff like this. I bought copies of Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich, Frankenstein Takes the Cake, and The True Meaning of Smekday and got them signed by Adam. (From the sidebar of his blog: My Stats - Human Bard–NG/ Str: 11/ Int: 13/ Wis: 14/ Dex: 8/ Con: 8/ Cha: 12)

In the evening I joined a number of friends to support the Barbrarian in her rookie match as a KC Roller Warrior as she and her fellow Dreadnought Dorothys dominated the Knockouts. We had a lot of fun and even figured out the rules, scoring, and strategy enough to follow the action. I recommend it. After the match she put off getting the gash under her chin stitched to sign autographs, including the back of the shirt I bought.

Afterward a few of us walked down to the Power & Light district for some food. On the way back we noticed a crowd of about ten people on the sidewalk in the middle of a nondescript block. I recognized Kevin Smith in the middle of it and realized he was using the side door to leave the Midland Theater, where he'd just given a show. We crossed the road and spent about 30 seconds standing right next to him as he let a couple of people take pictures with him before getting into his car. I didn't get my own or shake his hand or anything, but, still, pretty cool random encounter for KC.