The first book signing eclipsed all that followed. I had published my first novel, Sweet Nothings, and the reprint popped up as I was hiding out on Martha's Vineyard, trying to write a second novel. While at the Oak Bluffs Pharmacy, where I went to develop film, the clerk invited me to do a book signing, there in her drugstore. She said she had great success with events.

I ended up in the window of the drugstore, next to a display for Odor-Eater footpads. No one showed up—but I sat next to those footpads for hours, on the assurance that a crowd would yet appear "when the lobster plant let out." Lobster plant let out, and still no one showed, save a Vineyard Gazette photographer to capture the image.

As I was about to dismount my stool in the window, I saw my single fan loping toward the display window—my Uncle Ben, who had raised me, and had just flown onto the island in a small plane.

"Sign the first one for me," he said.

Laura Shaine Cunningham, a playwright and journalist, is also the author of the memoirs Sleeping Arrangements and A Place in the Country and several novels.



Autographing my books has a special meaning for me. I sign not just for me, but also for my grandfather and my father, who taught me when I was young how to use the delicate wolf-hair brush and how to master the fine strokes of Chinese calligraphy. My father and grandfather have both passed on. That's why I sign my books with a brush dipped in black rice ink—my father's and grandfather's legacy—so that they both could be honored, so that their spirits may live on in the pages that I write.

Da Chen is the New York Times best-selling author of Colors of the Mountain, Sounds of the River, and the just-released novel Brothers.



My favorite story takes place in Munich, at the end of a long book tour. When we arrived at the sold-out hall, a mob of fans rushed the car as if we were rock stars. My two very capable German publicity women fended them all off, including one guy who simply wanted me to sign some photos he'd taken of me on the last tour. But no: no exceptions. We were whisked into the hall.

Now, I should say that it was a cold night and that the entire gig, with book signing for some 1,000 people, took circa four hours, after which there was a catered dinner right there in the hall, so we're talking maybe six hours total. When I came out—yes, you guessed it—there was the guy with the photos. Which I signed in about 30 seconds. But oh, the life of the fan!

T. C. Boyle is the award-winning author of Water Music, World's End, The Tortilla Curtain, Drop City, and many more books, including his latest, Talk Talk.



At a book signing my already blank mind gets even blanker. I can't remember anybody's name, and the only phrase that comes into my head is "With best wishes." Now, there's no reason to think of "With best wishes" as the easy way out, but I do. What's wrong with me? I have found myself going on and on about the pleasant afternoon/evening or the inclement weather or what kind of growing season it has been for tomatoes to some poor stranger who probably only wants my name, possibly "with best wishes." It is almost harder to sign a book than to write one.

Abigail Thomas is the author of Safekeeping, three works of fiction, and the just-published memoir A Three Dog Life.