On September 25th Christina Baker Kline was scheduled to speak at Stockton’s Freshman Convocation. From the day I found out in early September, I was ecstatic that I was going to get to meet Mrs. Kline. I absolutely loved Orphan Train and I was excited to hear her perspective on the book. But more than anything I was excited to meet a famous author. I absolutely love book and I had always wanted to go to a book signing, but I never had the opportunity before. But now that a New York Times Bestselling author was coming to my school I wasn’t going to miss it for the world.

When the day finally arrived, I all but ran from my 2:30-4:20 class in F wing (wich of course ran five minutes over time) down to the PAC. I arrived just in time to be seated in one of the last available seats and I watched as the people behind me stood in clusters where ever there was room. I waited anxiously for the presentation to start; the thought of being late to my six o’clock class always at the back of my mind.

After a few minutes waiting and a few short speeches to thank everyone who had made the night possible, Mrs. Kline entered and began her presentation. I learned a lot from her slides, like how the train riders all thought that they were the only train that existed at the time. I found that so interesting for one because it helped me understand part of why Vivian spent so much of her life feeling so isolated from the world: she thought she was the only person to have this kind of experience. For another it really helped me understand how scary and confusing this whole process must have been to a child. With every fact and statistic I learned a little more and got a better understanding of Orphan Train as well as the Orphan Train. Not to mention all of the sweet and heartwarming anecdotes she gave about actual train riders.

Once the presentation had ended, I checked my watch and realized that any hope of getting to my class on time was lost; the only question now was how late was I going to be? A sensible person in my position probably would have gone to class instead of waiting in the enormous line to get Mrs. Kline’s autograph. But I had come there that day with a mission: to meet my first author and get her autograph, and I was going to do it come hell or high water.

I was somewhere in the middle of the book signing line and it took about fifteen minutes for me to get to the front. When I did I told Mrs. Kline how much I loved her book and in addition to asking her to sign my copy of Orphan Train I asked her to sign my writing journal. This, I explained, was something I did whenever I got the chance to meet a speaker/presenter who I found particularly inspiring. I’ve found that looking at their quick messages and remembering what they presented about really helps me get though cases of writers block and helps motivate me to share my writing when I can. She happily agreed, and wrote me a little message telling me to never stop writing, with a small smiling face next to it.

I then rushed to class and apologized to my professor for being 45 minutes late.