Nicole and I are in Anaheim for the American Library Association show, while Steve and Hal are back east handling Origins. The ALA show is in the same convention center that hosted GenCon SoCal, so we at least know our way around. The show is quite large, with many publishers great and small in attendance. We came to promote our upcoming A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying game and the idea of gaming in libraries in general. We had a long chat with famed RPG artist Liz Danforth today, who it turns out is also a librarian working on getting more game programs going. That should be a helpful connection. WotC is here but they are not even displaying D&D; in their booth; it’s all dedicated to their novels.

We’ve seen a lot of interest for Ice and Fire, which is great. The biggest hurdle we have to overcome with the non-gamer librarians is getting them to understand that we do not publish either graphic novels or manuals for computer games. Once we get across the idea that these are games in book form, they quickly understand how RPGs are a pretty natural fit for libraries.

The food situation has been pretty crappy. Since Disney is in Anaheim, it’s stuffed full of chain restaurants and tourist traps. Our hotel is right on the Fullerton line, so we have experimented with places in its “SoCo” area with mixed results. Stan! joined us at Roscoe’s Deli last night and while it was no Katz’s, it was pretty good. It’s been awhile since we’ve had a chance to hang out with Stan!, so it was good catching up with him. Tonight we tried Table Ten, which was hit and miss. I’m tempted to drive to Malibu tomorrow to hit Nobu, but that’d probably take 3 hours in LA traffic.

We did get the good news that our Hobby Games: The 100 Best book won an Origins Award tonight. That was my favorite book we published last year, so I’m glad it got the nod. Big ups to Jim Lowder for putting it together. That’ll give us another selling point on the floor at ALA tomorrow. We have much more craziness with librarians ahead of us.