They spoke about their newest books and the This is Teen community forum which aims to give young readers a place online to talk to authors and find new YA books to read. I found it inspiring what Libba said during the Question & Answer spot about what most influenced her to become who she is today. She suffered severe injuries after a car accident as a teenager, and while she recovered she wrote all of her feelings in a "little yellow journal." From then on, she kept writing. It wasn't until later that she realized being a writer was a viable career option. She points back to journal writing as her biggest inspiration. What an awesome plug for keeping a written journal!
Some of the recent author events I attended I was not as familiar with the author's books. I've read all but the newest book of Libba Bray, and have read several of Meg Cabot's books for adults and one from a young adult series. If I have a book signed, a lot of times I don't have a lot to say to an author unless it's something basic. I have to say, this group of authors was so friendly and chatty, they took time to talk to everyone who went through the signing line.
See how friendly Meg looks?
I mentioned to her how much I liked the book Size 12 is not Fat, which is about a former teen pop star who after her career fizzles out, moves into a college residence hall for work and solves campus mysteries on the side. What stuck with me is a part where the main character determined a girl could not have possibly pushed a fellow student down the elevator shaft because she had a Ziggy (a totally lame outdated Sunday comics character) notebook in her room - surely no one who had anything with Ziggy on it was capable of murder.
I'm planning to buy Beauty Queens for my e-reader (when I finally buy it! Hopefully soon...) and I'll post a review. I have Abandon which I'm planning to read next.
Next up this weekend: Southeast Wisconsin Festival of Books: a free event with seminars and panels from local midwest and national-level authors. It will be my first foray into any type of publishing conference. I thought I'd start with a smaller scale one that seems to be less about publishing and more about writing and books in general. I will do a write-up next week!
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She does look very friendly! It makes me curious to read her books... It is so much nicer to read books by authors who seem to generally care of those who pick up their books.
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