To mark its centennial, Simon & Schuster also held a town hall in Midtown Manhattan on Monday night, with appearances by 35 of its best-known authors. The lineup includes award-winning novelists such as Jennifer Egan, John Irving and Anthony Doerr; best-selling nonfiction authors, among them Walter Isaacson, Bob Woodward, Doris Kearns Goodwin and Susan Orlean; and a sprinkling of public figures that included Jerry Seinfeld, Charlamagne Tha God and Hillary Clinton, who was briefly jeered by a protester who called her a war criminal before being escorted out.
Before the event, dozens of literary luminaries mingled in an upstairs lounge.
“I lost my mind when John Irving walked in,” says Lauren Billings, who writes best-selling romances with Christina Hobbs under the pen name Christina Lauren.
“I started crying when we talked to Judy Blume,” Hobbs added.
Blume, for his part, was equally star struck on the guest list. “The best thing is getting to know all these writers whose books I sell in my bookstore,” said Blume, who owns a bookstore in Key West, Fla., and is in the middle of talks. to novelist Jesmyn Ward, standing a few feet from where novelists Colm Toibin and Jennifer Egan were talking.
“It’s a room full of famous nerds, basically,” said Jason Reynolds, a blockbuster children’s and young adult novelist, after surveying the crowd.
Judith Viorst, the author of more than 40 books, among them the children’s classic “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day,” joked when she was on stage about being almost as age of Simon & Schuster. “It’s one of those rare occasions these days that I’m a little younger than the honoree,” said Viorst, who is 93 years old.
