A couple of months ago I went to the London Book Fair and met Margaret Atwood. Atwood is an acclaimed novelist ('The Handmaid's Tale,' 'The Blind Assassin,' 'Oryx and Crake,' among many others) and poet who can now also call herself an inventor. After one too many tedious book tours, Atwood came up with the idea for a device that would allow authors to sign books remotely.

Thus the Long Pen was born. Atwood had a lot of help, of course, from team members with technical expertise; she originally had thought of the device when she was signing a UPS delivery person's electronic delivery pad. Of course, those pads capture a signature -- but Atwood wanted to go a few steps further, and not only capture a signature, but send it to another location in real ink, while allowing the people involved (an author and a reader) to have a real-time, meaningful interaction.

The Long Pen now consists of three "stations," if you will: the author has a video monitor and an electronic pad with a stylus, and so does the reader. Let's put the author in New York, and the reader in, say, Zagreb. These stations are connected via a dedicated Internet cable, and the "go-between" is a metal contraption on the readers' side that clamps and holds a regular pen (it can be any pen -- Sharpie, ballpoint, the reader's own heirloom Montblanc) that is then manipulated by signals from the author's station to reproduce signature, inscription -- even doodles.

Right now, the design is still pretty "clunky," as the Long Pen folks admit on their Web site. I believe I said in my London entry that it looks a bit like an enormous Tinkertoy construction. However, it works, and I was so intrigued by the idea and the device in London that I asked Atwood if she would come to Book Expo and give a demonstration in the AOL CyberCafe. To my surprise and delight, she thought it was a terrific idea and our teams made it happen.

Yesterday we had an opportunity to see the Long Pen in action at Book Expo America with a special guest -- comedian Tracey Ullman. I'd just finished interviewing Ullman (more on that soon) when she spotted the sign in our CyberCafe touting today's demonstration of the Long Pen with Margaret Atwood.

"Is Margaret Atwood here?!" she gasped. "She wrote 'The Blind Assassin! Can I meet her?"

Yes and yes, Tracey -- I told her that not only could she meet Atwood, but that she could try out the Long Pen. Before I knew it, they were seated at opposite stations, and Ullman was signing an inscription to Atwood.

I don't know which was more exciting -- seeing the Long Pen work up close, or seeing two creative stars meet for the first time. Margaret Atwood will be meeting many more fans -- this time, not of her writing, but of her brainchild.