Yesterday was another epic author event under the belt for me, viagra 40mg down at Mysterious Galaxy for the first stop of the Fierce Reads Tour.
This fall Fierce Reads tour features authors Gennifer Albin and Ann Aguirre, what is ed with Jessica Brody and Leigh Bardugo as special guests.
Now, I’m already quite familiar with Jessica and Leigh. I mean, when Jessica Brody tweets you because she saw that you were interviewed in the CBS interview with Cassandra Clare, that’s pretty awesome. Jessica is the author of several contemporary YA novels, like My Life Undecided and The Karma Club, and the Unremembered trilogy, with a sort of Bourne identity storyline but with a kickass girl and a hot guy. Can’t deny that one can you?
Leigh Bardugo is the author of Shadow and Bone, and Siege and Storm, following the story of Alina Starkov in this immense and dark fantasy world, who finds out she has special powers and must be taken under the wing of the mysterious Darkling in order to learn them.
Gennifer and Ann are new authors to my ever growing list. Gennifer writes a sort of fantasy-dystopian where girls called Spinsters literally weave the reality of the world on looms. I just bought the first book of Ann’s trilogy, but I’m very excited to dive into it.
The adventure getting to Mysterious Galaxy was super fun, with my friends Cassandra, and Sylvia from FanGirlFeeels, and when we got there, I was SO happy to be there! I enjoy meeting authors and I love Mysterious Galaxy. They are such fun indie bookstores and they’re great. The authors had arrived at the same time, and both Jessica and Leigh said enthusiastic hellos to myself and to Sylvia, and thanked us for driving to see them.
The event was SUCH a blast. I already knew that Jessica and Leigh were super fun to meet. Each one of them has their own brand of humor, and I always have such a great time with their events. Add in Ann and Gennifer and it was literally a laugh fest the entire time. Seriously, I swear I want to be an author just to hang out with these super cool ladies. I was literally laughing, with a little bit of tears, every time they were talking. This was the first stop of the tour, and I know that the rest of the stops are going to be just fabulous, because they obviously have a fun and awesome chemistry going on.
All the authors shared a lot about writing, and about their books. I always love coming to these things because I feel like I get wonderful insight to the authors’ books and I also get priceless writing advice, which is always helpful to me. I gobble up all possible writing advice, anything to help keep me motivated and inspired.
They also addressed the sort of controversy and issues going on with Allegiant. Each author sort of agreed that readers have the right to react as they please, but the reactions can be dealt with in other manners. Ann said she knows that not everyone is going to love her book, but she’d hope they wouldn’t bring it to her front yard. Leigh was extremely passionate about it, and said she would hope that readers understood where authors are coming from when they are writing their novel, and that they’re going to write the novel they set out to write. She also said that expressing all those emotions, like hate and anger, won’t change anything so its a waste of time. I liked what Jessica said, that love and hate come from the same place, and you know you’re doing something right if you get either of those.
I’ve also learned from these authors that the second and third books were harder to write. Gennifer Albin said that her first book seemed like a breeze to her, but the second one was a lot harder. Both Leigh and Jessica lamented over their third books, and jokingly called Jessica’s third book “stupidly awesome.” Ann talked about the difficulties of having a successful first book, and translating the story and the audience into the second and the third book.
I found that SO interesting. She really explained how each of her books in her trilogy sort of represented something different: the first book was the quest, the second book was the emotions and building of relationships, and the third was the war. I really bought into that, and I really loved it. I’m writing a standalone sci-fi so I’m not frazzled at how to fit all of that into one book. But I thought it was a good way of thinking of it, and its something I’m definitely keeping in mind!
Then came meeting the authors, which is always fun because you get to interact with them, and I’ve gotten to know Jessica and Leigh, we’ve bonded and can joke with each other. When my friend Cassandra met Jessica Brody, she was like “you came with these clowns?!” and I couldn’t stop laughing. But she was extremely helpful with writing tips, and I’m going to be checking out this book called Save the Cat and creating a book bible for my sci-fi book. I’m going to start working on that now!
Lastly, I LOVED talking to Gennifer about Harry Potter and Doctor Who. She had the cutest Doctor Who lunch box/purse thing, and I showed her my Doctor Who tattoo and she was so excited about it, and she was like “I need to get my Deathly Hallows tattoo” and I just held out my other wrist, and she laughed, and was like “You stole all my tattoo ideas!” I love author bonding ;)
Here is all the awesome swag/signed books I got!
OH! And of course I had Gennifer and Ann sign my poster of writing advice :) Check out what they had to say!
I also was really stoked to meet one of my followers, Kayla, who is the blogger over at The Thousand Lives. We talk a LOT online, especially about books, and it was her VERY FIRST book event. You can read about her experience here, and I am so glad to have met her IRL and to be part of her first author event experience!
Last night was just the first stop of their tour (they’re in Albuquerque tonight), and there are SO many more stops. Check out this link to find out if they’re coming near you. You definitely do NOT want to miss out!
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