2017 in Author Events
January 20th – Veronica Roth
To literally no
one’s surprise, I actually volunteer at a library where I live. Through this
connection, I sometimes get opportunities to volunteer for big events like this
one. At this event, I sold copies of Carve the Mark
before the interview, where there was a surprise in the back of some of the books.
If you got a slip of blue paper, you got to go to Veronica’s book signing and
meet her after the interview. In total espionage fashion, I told my friends
about this under my breath and they made a big scene of trying to find the “perfect
copy” until I had to shoo them away. After cleaning up, I got to sneak in and watch
Veronica’s interview from the back of the auditorium (for free I might add,
library volunteer has its perks). She’s really funny, and it was so interesting
to hear about what projects she’s got going on since the huge success of Divergent. Afterwards, the volunteer
coordinator asked if anyone wanted to come into Veronica’s book signing room in
order to get ready for the signing line. If you’ve ever been to a book signing,
you know there’s someone who goes down the line and writes everyone’s name on a
post-it note to make it easier on the author. Yeah, that was me. What I didn’t
know was that Veronica was actually already in the signing room when I got
there! She looked really tired so I tried not to gush, but we talked about
Chicago and writing for a solid 10 minutes until it was time for the book
signing to start! That was the most incredible part of the experience and I’m
so grateful to the library for it because I got to just chat with a pretty famous
author with none of the weird author-fan dynamic.
September 5th – Sarah J. Maas
Oh my god, this
event was one of the most fun nights I’ve ever had in my life. Not only did I
get to meet one of my favorite authors of all time, but I spent the night
dressed up in fun costumes with some of my best friends. When we found out that
SJM was coming to town on her Tower of
Dawn tour, we decided we would go big or go home. Each of us chose a
character and started getting a costume together back in the summer. As I have
medium length blonde hair, I obviously chose to be the illustrious Aelin
Ashryver Galathynius. I bought a billowy white peasant blouse and a pirate vest
from a local consignment store, but everything else I either already owned or I
made (including an Eye of Elena which I am quite proud of). I did fiery eye
makeup and a friend braided my hair. I gotta be honest, I felt like a total badass. All my friends came over
to my house to get ready before the event. You can see them with Sarah above as
Nehemia, Feyre, and Amren (not pictured: my other friend in a last-minute Manon
costume that involved a Little Red Riding Hood cape). We totally trashed my bathroom
in a flurry of dresses and makeup. We were having so much fun, we completely
forgot to eat dinner before leaving! Once we got to the event, we took some
Snapchats, played some Tower of Dawn themed
word games, and generally tried not to pee ourselves from excitement. In her
interview, Sarah was (as usual) hilarious, loud, and consistently on a tangent
that had nothing to do with the book. In other words, we were in heaven. After
the interview, they drew raffle numbers for 50 people who would get to be in
Sarah’s signing line. Two of my friends out of the five of us got chosen, which
I thought was pretty good odds. My friend Kiana was one of the very last people
chosen, so we waited near her in line until it was her turn. Right before
getting her book signed while we were waiting for her below the stage, she
asked the photographer if her friends could be in her picture with Sarah since
we dressed up, and she said yes! Thank you Kiana!!! We ran up the steps to the
stage and waited while Kiana got her book signed. When Sarah saw us, her eyes
went wide and she was like “oh my god that’s amazing!” She immediately knew who
all of us were and the picture above documents basically one of the coolest
moments of my life. I love Sarah J Maas with all my heart, as a person and a
writer. All of the excitement of this night was coupled with how amazing Tower of Dawn was. You’ve done it again,
SJM.
September 25th – Leigh Bardugo
This event was
my second time meeting Leigh Bardugo because she had also come to town for Crooked Kingdom the year before, and she
was no less amazing the second time. My town was the first stop on her Language of Thorns tour, and it was
actually the only place you could get the book the day before it came out. My
friend Sarah and I got to the event maybe 5 minutes before it started so we
were literally sitting on the floor beneath a podium where Leigh talked. She
was hilarious as always, but she mainly talked about how fairy tales shape
cultures, which I thought was really interesting and The Language of Thorns definitely emulates that idea. Even more
exciting, Leigh announced her new project which is a series centered around my
favorite character from The Grisha
Trilogy, Nikolai Lantsov! I was obviously thrilled about this. Leigh
committed to signing the books of everyone who was there, which meant they had
to do the line in groups…and we were in the very last one. However, the
bookstore did something very cool and had an ice cream truck out in the parking
lot while we waited! It was super cute because all of the flavors were themed
around Leigh’s books. I very much enjoyed my bowl of “Ketterdam Dough.” Leigh
was super nice and gave everyone a set of pins and a button with their book.
October 15th – Stephanie
Perkins
Meeting
Stephanie Perkins was completely accidental but I’m so glad it happened! I go
to the fall book festival in my town every year, and this year I didn’t have
any particular events in mind before I went. I had no idea Stephanie was going
to be there until I picked up a program the day of! Stephanie is one of my favorite
contemporary authors so as soon as I saw she was going to be speaking, I booked
it to the event (pun intended). There’s
Someone Inside Your House is very different from Stephanie’s other books in
that it’s a slasher novel. This made for a very interesting interview where she
talked about the horror genre to a bunch of Anna
and the French Kiss fans. They took audience questions and I asked “Which of
your other characters would be most likely to survive a slasher novel?” She thought this was a great question (I was proud) and after
much deliberation, she decided on Lola because she’s the only one that wouldn’t
mind getting her hands dirty, though Cricket would die immediately. He’s too
pure for this world. She had a signing after the interview that didn’t have a super
long line so I got to talk to her for a few minutes. I know she’s a huge
nerdfighter so we talked about John and Hank Green (more on that next), and
about how much she inspires me as a writer. She was so lovely and I’m so glad this
happenstance allowed me to meet her! Also, huge shoutout to the woman in the background eating an ice cream cone. She's truly living her best life.
October 17th – John and Hank
Green
This event is
hard for me to talk about due to my infinite and undiluted love for these two. Not
only do I love John’s books, but I have been a nerdfighter and a fan of
vlogbrothers for many many years, so getting to see John and Hank in my own
town was one of the happiest days of my life. I actually cried when I got my
ticket. This event was equally for fans of John and Hank themselves as it was
for the book. There was a live episode of Dear Hank and John (my favorite
podcast of all time), a lecture about taxonomy from Dr. Larry Turtleman, and lots
of people singing along to Hank Green playing All Star on the acoustic guitar.
The event was both funny and moving as the subject matter of Turtles All the Way Down should dictate,
and I am honestly just so in love with these two men and the community they
have created. In love, and so so so grateful I get to call myself a part of it.
This was one of the biggest highlights of my year. Thank you for this if not
for anything else, 2017.
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