International Christian Retail Show Recap

I’ve just returned from two glorious Internet-free weeks, during which I took a much-needed break from blogging. My family spent last week camping at Pacific Beach, Washington, where the sun shined warmly all day (a minor miracle for the Washington coast). We flew kites with our kids, played in the sand, and walked for miles along the coastline, collecting sand dollars. My son and I even spotted two pelicans who were trying to blend in with the seagulls sitting on the beach.

The week before our beach trip I was in Denver, working as a journalist at the International Christian Retail Show. I had the opportunity to interview about 20 authors, several of whom I’ll be featuring in upcoming posts.

While at the ICRS, I worked on behalf of three clients: the wonderful folks from WinePress Publishing Group (the leading Christian custom publishing house); Moms At Work (a California-based non-profit organization that encourages mothers at their place of work); and Today’s Christian (a neat magazine that reminds me of a Christian version of Reader’s Digest).

In between interviewing authors and running to the trade show floor to nab free autographed books, I kept my eyes peeled for adoption authors and adoption books. I found several (more about them in the next post).

Here are some of the highlights of my week at ICRS:

*WARNING: If you like learning about new books, bookseller’s trade shows and Christian authors, keep reading; if you want to read more about the latest adoption books and their authors, skip to the next post.

After a morning of interviewing authors, I ran upstairs to the convention floor in hopes of spotting NFL MVP Shaun Alexander (running back for the Seattle Seahawks). I had missed him by about five minutes; he had been escorted to some secret room to have a press conference with about 50 journalists.

But a few minutes later, I did have a chance to chat with Cec Murphey, the author of Shaun’s soon-to-be-released book, Touchdown Alexander: My Story of Faith, Football, and Pursuing the Dream. Cec is a delightful man whom I met this spring at a writers’ conference. He’s ghost-written tons of books for notables such as Shaun Alexander. I was also able to obtain two mini-footballs from the Harvest House booth (publisher of Shaun’s book and my upcoming adoption book) to bring home for my boys.

I met with my editors from Harvest House, who explained the process my manuscript will undergo from the time I turn it in to the time the book is released next summer. They graciously answered a zillion questions and invited me to stay for lunch. I am not one to turn down a free catered lunch, so I stayed.

During lunch, I met Suzie Eller and her hubby. Suzie owns a cool e-mail loop for professional Christian writers, called The Writers’ View. Her latest book for moms is just out; it’s called The Mom I Want to Be: Rising Above Your Past to Give Your Kids a Great Future.

Later that evening, when 50 or 60 of us Viewheads went out to dinner together, I connected with my roommate from last year’s ICRS, Tina Forkner. Tina has recently signed a two-book deal to write women’s fiction (in the photo at right, Tina's on the left and I'm on the right).

On my last evening at ICRS, I rescued my new buddy, Chip MacGregor, from his FaithWords booth (FaithWords was previously known as Warner Faith, which used to be an imprint of Time-Warner, which is now known as Hachette Book Group. I know; it’s very confusing). Anyway, Chip’s still the publisher and he was worn out from being in meetings all day, so we walked around the convention floor searching for the most creative and unusual Jesus Junk we could find. We discovered a “Love Me Jesus” cloth doll and something called Heavenly Golf Balls or some equally absurd-sounding name.

Below, Carla Williams from WinePress, Chip MacGregor, and me.

In the next post, I’ll tell you about some of the adoption and infertility authors I talked with at ICRS.

For more news and information about adoption, please visit my Web site, www.laurachristianson.com.