Meeting Barbara Kingsolver, New York Times Best-Selling Author

I hope I’m cordial and gracious when I see a celebrity, but the reality is I get all hyper. I such a sucker for famous people and I love to meet them.

I don’t care if you’re an Emmy winner (Sam Shepard) or a local news anchor (Janine Ford), a musician (Jesus Jones) or a morning radio D.J. (Gwen Foster), as long as your famous I’m energized and want to talk to you.

And if I walk past you in the airport (Dan Majerle, Phil Jackson), I’ll give you a shot-out.

If I see you in a mall (Mike Tyson), in the crowd at a sporting event (Carl Lewis) or in a dark parking lot (Charles Barkley & Michael Jordan), I’ll stop to say hello.

If you’re a personal assistant (Jewel) or massage therapist (Gwyneth Paltrow)of a famous person, your in luck because I’ll give you the same eager attention I’d give that famous person herself.

My interest in famous authors started in college. I attended multiple author readings while at ASU and recently started attending author lectures again (Glenn Beck, Kerry Lynn Blair, Janette Rallison, William P. Young).

Last week I went with a darling friend, Martha, to hear New York Times Best-selling author Barbara Kingsolver (www.animalvegetablemiracle.com).

As a teen, her book, Pigs In Heaven made a huge impression on me and I’ve followed her career ever since.

The auditorium is full and the book reading is about to start, but I have to make one more bathroom break (pregnancy does this to a girl). The lobby, with its bright lights and costume drapes, has cleared out and who do you think walks into the lobby? Yes, you guessed it: Barbara herself.

She is a beautiful lady, tall and thin, distinguished and articulate, even in how she moves through the opened glass door. The shimmering gold scarf running down her neck is for royalty and I stand motionless; speechless. She stops and smiles at me and my mouth opens as wide as my bulging eyes.

I don’t introduce myself, I don’t say hello. I just stare. At this point in my life, a New York Times best-selling author is a bit too intimidating to me.

Later, when she signs my book and my mouth is all dry, my necklace catches on the book jacket and springs back into my face; a shot gun to my already shaky ego. So much for grace, but at this moment I tell her Pigs In Heaven was the first adult novel I read and it started my love for reading. I walk away with her signature in my book and the message of her lecture “Write your passion and never give up.”