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The Waterstones Hereford Julia Donaldson Signing 27th September 2012

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It’s been three years since Hereford Watertsones bookshop had the Queen of Picture Books grace her presence in this most quiet and small city. Three years ago I was the multi-tasking account sales manager, event-planning bookseller running the children’s department. I also had the privilege of hosting my first ever book-signing for the one and only Julia Donaldson.

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It was a chaotic time, it was back to school season and a lot was going on. I had newly taken on the kids department and was learning the ropes. It was all perfect timing!100_0438A  100_0439A

The day after I got confirmation that Donaldson could come to Hereford we had a visit from both a Divisional and Regional Manager and you can imagine how impressive it was to hear that not I been with the company for almost half a decade, but in less than three months into my new Kids Bookseller role I had a Top-Selling Children’s Author come to our store for a signing. It was nothing short of Catherine Vaughan’s Magic & Manifesting + Talent….

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It was a lot of hard work but I learned a lot on the go and it was an experience to encapsulate what I do best: organization and magic! People wander how someone with no event-planning experience can accomplish such a huge task. I just respond saying I learned everything I needed to know about events management from reality television. And it’s true! Thank you Kimora Lee Simmon’s: Life in The Fab Lane TV show.100_0444A  100_0445A  100_0447A      100_0451A

This is me in the Kid’s department.

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The 1st customer who queued up was a Super Fan! She had nail art of The Gruffalo character’s on her hands- Wow!    100_0457A        This is Julia signing my hardback copy of “Superworm.”100_0467A

Here is my specially dedicated copy of “Superworm.” I was so delighted that Julia was happy with the running of the event!

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1 Comment Posted on Events

Hay Festival 2014 Event: Picture Book Panel (Part 3)

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Picture Books are very magical indeed. I will soon blog about how they magically, yes MAGICALLY came into my life in a later post. Obviously I love picture books so could not resist this event. And Rachel was most inspiring because she literally has her own card and gift EMPIRE plus she like randomly decided to work as an air stewardess (among many other ventures) which is sooooo the type of thing I would do except I’m not good with flying! Oh yes and Rachel was 5 months pregnant at the time and has since had her beautiful daughter! 

So the Super-Awesome-Picture-Book-Gang is Chris Haughton on the left below, Oliver Jeffers centre and the sunny & gorgeous Rachel Bright! 😀 You need to read “Oh no! George” by Haughton because you need more colour in your life and you must purchase “This moose belongs to me” by Jeffers because it is a gorgeous picture book and you must read all the “Love Monster” stories. I also own some of Rachel’s “The Bright Side” range of gifts and cards. A post on that coming shortly!
JpegOk so seconds before I got a pic with the Super-Awesome-Picture-Book-Gang my hair was on point. Like PERFECT. On Fleek as North West would say.

Then somehow my hair turns into this…Like WTF? Just not on point, just seconds ago it was like Rachel’s with a side parting and then this raven cascade sans side-parting just flops down upon my scalp from outta nowhere! Just not a good look but my boobs look EPIC so can’t complain 😛

JpegApologies if you were looking for a more in depth discussion of the points raised at the panel. I have simply forgotten-it was a year ago! Notably the trauma of my hair not on fleek took precedent in the recollection of this event.  

xoxo Catherine 😀