My Full Report from Jennapalooza

aka my weekend at Ann Patchett's house

Last weekend, I flew to Nashville for the first Jenna’s Book Club Book Festival, or as I liked to call it, Jennapalooza. I’ve never been to Lollapalooza or Coachella or anything like that, because I don’t like crowds and I don’t like standing up while listening to music but I do like authors and Jenna Bush Hager and Nashville, so to Jennapalooza I went. Was the real reason I went because Ann Patchett invited me to sleepover at her house? Not no. The answer is not no. I’m going to try to respect Ann’s privacy in this post while also giving the goods a little bit, because the people need to know.

Local icon walks her dog.

Jenna and the Today Show posse took over the W Hotel and wow, there were a lot of ladies in floral dresses and cowboy boots! The readers were PUMPED. There were so many great writers, too—I must say, and I know this sounds like I’m patting myself on the back, but Jenna has really good taste. She just does! Alison Espach and Jessica Sofer and Rumaan Alam and Cristina Henriquez and Chris Whitaker and Tara Stringfellow and Diane Marie Brown and Jean Kwok and Coco Mellors and Amity Gaige and Elin motherfucking Hilderbrand. Do you know how much I love Elin Hilderbrand? Elin was going to come to a session that I was doing with her work husband, the EXTREMELY wonderful Tim Ehrenberg, and she was wearing a tiny white dress (Elin is in the best shape I have ever seen anyone in, in my life, I’m pretty sure Elin Hilderband has abs you could grate cheese on) and she said, I’m going to change and be incognito, and then she changed into a dress that was identical, only navy blue. I love Elin Hilderbrand.

Photo by Jessie Waters, look on Ann’s face: priceless.

When I grow up, I want to be Elin Hilderbrand’s dress closet. Photo by Jessie Waters.

Jenna is very much the captain of this cheerleading team. Photo by Jessie Waters, best face award goes to Elin.

These are my people-eating eyes. I apologize to whoever I was looking at, that is terrifying. Photo by Jessie Waters.

The hotel was full of fun things to go, including buying books from Parnassus, because of course. There were tarot readings and charm bracelet stations and watercolor portraits and cookie decorating. But really it was full of women who love books, and those are my very favorite kind. I had so many sweet conversations. People came with their moms, they came with their sisters, they came with their friends, they came along and MADE friends. I made friends! It was exhausting and it was wonderful. And yes, the very best part was at the end of the day Jenna took Elin and Tim and a gaggle of authors to the rodeo to see Tim McGraw and I went home to Ann’s house and we sat on the couch and gossiped in each other’s arms for hours. Literal heaven.

Ok here’s what you came here to see. If you were going to guess how many paintings that appear on Ann’s book jackets are hanging on the walls of her house, how many would you guess?

I had a wonderful time. Thank you Ann, thank you Jenna, thank you Nashville, and also a special shout-out to Ann for stealing me a mountain of Goo Goo clusters and to my homegirls Abby from the Today Show for stealing me a mountain of pillow-cases that were in the gift bags because it is fun to get presents.

They are really nice pillowcases.

Somehow I got Ann’s name tag, too. Score. (Note: it’s now Thursday and the Goos are all gone. Guess it’s time for another trip.) See below pic from the Nashville airport for the answer to the trivia question.

See you next time, y’all!