It’s 6:45 and a gentleman comes over the microphone to break the news everyone fears. “Folks I’m sorry but it’s going to be standing room only.”

The SMU Authors Live lecture featuring Jodi Picoult has drawn a crowd that is overflowing the Hughes-Trigg Theater. People continue to pour in almost ten minutes after Picoult’s lecture on her new novel, Leaving Time, was supposed to start.

The focus of the crowd is not on her book, it is over the misprint in the Dallas Morning News about the location of the lecture.

Most Authors Live lectures are held at the Highland Park United Methodist Church, but not Picoult’s. This is due to the division of the parents of Highland Park over Picoult’s novel, Nineteen Minutes.

Nineteen Minutes was removed by administrative action from the Highland Park schools according to the Dallas Morning News. HPUMC did not hold the lecture at the usual facility because of this, but the Dallas Morning News printed that it would still be held there.

Since the theater holds less people, some struggle to find seats. People resort to sitting in the aisles or standing outside the theater to listen to the lecture. One woman, who has been forced to stand, turns to her husband and points out with disgust that this many people in one room would be a fire hazard.

The tension in the room subsides when Picoult hits the stage. People forget about the stifling heat and how hard they are sweating due to the overcrowding. Picoult entertained the crowd with a passage reading from her novel and facts about elephants.