Well, as I mentioned, I was happy to see CT Weblog editor Ted Olsen. In addition, I had a nice chat with Vinita Wright, an author and editor who edited my fall Loyola book (which is already on Amazon, miraculously).

I finally met Mark Neilsen, my editor at Living Faith, which happens to be the writing that I do that gets me the greatest volume of reactions – with a circulation of 580,000 now, I guess that figures.

Katie was probably the one with the most thrilling author encounters. As I mentioned, she heard Eoin Colfer speak at a bookstore on Tuesday, then at BEA, she met and had her photo taken with Meg Cabot, the author of books that are really Katie’s only allowance (by her own rules) for relatively junky reading – Princess Diaries, etc. They were serving champagne at that booth, by the way. (not to minors). At the Printer’s Row Book Fair, she heard a reading from, got a book signed by and had her photo taken with Welsh author Jenny Nimmo, another favorite.

Hey, I saw David Maraniss walking down the street at the book fair, on his way to a talk.

Actually, the most serendipitous moment for me occurred when we strolled into the Harold Washington Library Center during the Book Fair, just because I wanted to see the interior. There were folks lined up to hear Peter Mayle speak, and there in the rear of the rotunda, sat an elderly man at a table, amiably chatting with a couple of women. I eyed him more closely and realized that it was Jules Feiffer, who had spoken earlier, and was evidently still hanging out after a book signing. (He had signed books at BEA the day before, but the line was around the convention center). There was hardly anyone there. I raced downstairs, where I’d seen Borders setting up shop selling books by authors speaking at that venue, and picked up one of his children’s books, Bark, George, which we’d just happened to have checked out of the library for a couple of weeks, and which Joseph loves, raced back upstairs, and presented it for signing, after coaching Joseph to tell Feiffer how much he liked the book. (“I like da book about da doggie.”).

And no, we didn’t see Clinton (decided not to go back into the city for it after we settled at the hotel), didn’t see Maureen Dowd (speaking on Saturday lunch), but did note that it was obvious that a mock election held at the BEA would undoubtedly be a landslide – and not for Bush.