Maureen's Trip to NYC

Last week I went to NYC to

a) meet with my agent and editor
b) speak at the Backspace Conference and
c) get some writing done.

Instead I

a) met and chatted with Margaret Atwood
b) had a great lunch and meeting with my editor and others at my publisher
c) spoke at the Backspace Conference
d) made some great new friends
e) saw two plays
f) did a little sight seeing, and
g) got zero writing done.


So, the Margaret Atwood thing....

When I was crashing around the coffee station in the Porter departure lounge, knocking people out with my backpack... I saw an older woman with a droopy sun hat who looked an awful lot like Margaret Atwood.

But I was flustered. I hadn't had a coffee, or anything to eat, and I only had a couple of minutes to guzzle the espresso I'd made at the coffee station before the flight left, so I didn't say anything... I did, however, send out a tweet.

And then by complete coincidence (I swear) I ended up directly behind her in line to board the plane. Again, I said nothing to her... But I did whisper, "Was that Margaret Atwood?" to the flight attendant checking the boarding passes at the gate. To which the flight attendant whispered back, "Yes!"

I saw her on the plane, but at the point, decided I shouldn't bother her. I was kicking myself, but happy to be in NYC and waited for the train at Newark to take me into the city. I didn't bother to look for Ms. Atwood at the train station, kind of assuming she probably had a limo to pick her up. 

Then I got on the train, making a last minute decision to rush down the platform to board at a less crowded door. 

And who did I see directly in front of me when I got on??? Yup. 

So, I sat down beside her and introduced myself. Actually, if memory serves, I did not introduce myself. Because that would have been too smart. Instead, I just started babbling about being a big fan and being an author too and we talked the entire way into the city.

I was kicking myself for not even bringing out a card to give her. But then imagine my surprise an hour or so later when I saw this tweet!

And replied with this...

And a little while later I saw this:

So, a great trip to NYC. And that was just the first couple of hours!

I was going to blog about the two plays I saw (MacBeth, with Alan Cumming and Lucky Guy, with Tom Hanks)... and how each of them used interesting storytelling techniques, but frankly, my little brush with CanLit royalty trumped it all.