Yesterday's book signing at Chapters in Richmond, B.C. was incredibly fun and truly a blast! A second only to that kragle swimsuit competition on Rigel 9. Despite the fact that I'd sold and published two books prior to "Darwin's Paradox", this was my first big bookstore signing! And I was jazzed. I knew ahead of time, though, that many of my friends couldn't make it; I'd informed them with too little notice. Likewise, my relatives are few and far away (well, being an alien...). Given that friends and relatives are--with the exception of J.K.Rowling, that is-- customarily where an author gets her audience for a signing, I was prepared for a solitary experience, a sole journey. Instead, I got a soul journey...

(Remember, Nina's book Darwin's Paradox is 20% off at EDGE! with free shipping!)

Prior to going in I had entertained foolish notions of sitting behind a stack of books, bored, as strangers milled past without a glance in my direction. Well, the word bored isn't in my vocabulary and, besides, that isn't my style (as those of you who know me would certainly testify; though I've been also known to have my shy moments...no really! Especially when it comes to THAT....well, you know...I'm too embarrassed to say...) So, when I arrived, energized with a Starbucks cinnamon latte in hand, I donned my sales robes and made a point of greeting my stranger friends. We all had something in common, after all: we all liked books. Determined to sign off all the books Chapters had been kind enough to get for this event, I hailed the merits of my book ("Look at this beautiful cover!) to one and all like a French market vendor...and soon--to my surprise--my off-key singing voice actually brought people flocking forward and I made friends with some wonderful people (who probably don't sing).

There was Mark, for instance, a young Vancouver student who studied evolution; there was Karyn, an avid science fiction fan and another Karin, also an avid reader; there was Jacek, an aspiring writer who is writing a very interesting YA novel, who came with his son; there was Craig Bowlsby, a local TV show producer (who I wangled an interview with...you'll see my interview of him here live on this blog later!); there was Kuldip, who wanted to talk philosophy during the whole three hours I was there; and Brenda Carr, another wonderful writer who is currently marketing her mythic fantasy novel (look for it soon!); and so many other wonderful people. My sole journey had become a soul journey. And I did manage to reduce that huge pile of books into a small rubble. It would have dwindled to nothing except that my husband and son wanted to celebrate and successfully lured me away with promises of wine and rich food.

After that, I had signings at Chapters-Eaton Centre, Indigo-Yorkdale Shopping Centre, Chapters-Markham, and will probably appear at other Chapter-Indigo-Coles stores at times to be determined.

Justyn Perry of EDGE and Jennifer Rahn, author of THE LONGEVITY THESIS were interviewed in the Epoch Times, a globally distributed Chinese language newspaper. To see the translated version, click here.


From Jennifer Rahn, author of THE LONGEVITY THESIS. The Hot Off the Press Party with Dragon Moon Press and EDGE took place Nov. 30th at Calgary's Historic Fire Hall #6 in the hip Kensington area. It's a nice brick structure with the former fire truck bays converted into meeting rooms. Randy McCharles and Susan Forest, authors featured in EDGE's Tesseracts Eleven, gave readings. Randy refused to read the entirety of his humorous piece "Vampires of the Rockies", which left us all on tenterhooks. Susan's piece, "Tomorrow and Tomorrow", was a real gut-kicker. I read an abridged version of Chapter 5 from THE LONGEVITY THESIS. Also attending were Robert Sawyer and his imprint editor/publisher Kirsten Morrell, as well as Dr. Rebbecca Bradley, Brian Hades, Brian's vivacious wife Anita, Janice Shoults also from EDGE, and of course Justyn Perry, our shindig organizer.