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young adult book reviews & more

A long overdue event recap post

Hey all! It's been a little quiet but insanely busy (ha! isn't it always?) on the home front. Here's (finally!) a little recap of all of the events I went to earlier in the month of November.

The first event of last month was Teen Author Reading Night at the Jefferson Market branch of the NYPL. I arrived a little bit early and got to chat with awesome people, including my friend Sam from Living Little Women and author Alecia Whitaker, and meet more awesome people, including Australian author Sean Williams.

Nora Raleigh Baskin, Joanna Philbin, Lauren McLaughlin, and Stewart Lewis
Barry Lyga, Leanna Renee Hieber, Donna Freitas, and Micol Ostow

The event, as always, was thoroughly enjoyable. I didn't have a chance to talk much with any of the featured authors, but I had a great time listening to authors talk about books that I loved (especially The Survival Kit by Donna Freitas and The Summer Before Boys by Nora Raleigh Baskin) or that I couldn't wait to read (including family by Micol Ostow, You Have Seven Messages by Stewart Lewis, and Darker Still by Leanna Renee Hieber).

Then, that very next day, I headed on down to Books of Wonder for another event. This one featured another awesome cast of authors, including Marianna Baer, Louis L. Buitendag, E. Archer, Jocelyn Davies, Karen Healey, and Andy Marino. Since I was running a little late to the event, I only got there just before it started, so I had to save all my socializing for after.

Marianna Baer, Louis L. Buitendag, and Andy Marino
E. Archer, Karen Healey, and Jocelyn Davies

One of the cool things about this panel was that everyone (with the exception of Karen Healey) was a debut author. The other was that everyone was just super funny: Karen Healey shared a story of how she gets her inspiration from mythical creatures in Central Park and E. Archer told us about his brief encounter with Fergie, the Duchess of York. Laughter abounded.

I had so much fun monopolizing Jocelyn Davies' time, chatting with her and author Michael Northrop, talking about waffles with Marianna Baer, and being gifted with a "Geek Fest" shirt by E. Archer and his splendiferous publicist. You all should be quite jealous of that last one.

That next week, I headed back to Books of Wonder for the NYC stop on the Stages on Pages tour. This unique event featured artists of all kinds, most of which have incorporated their loves for the arts in any form into their novels.

Gretchen McNeil, Stasia Ward Kehoe, Sheela Chari, Jessica Martinez, and Sophie Flack
Elise Allen, Barbara Dee, Roseanne Parry, and Sara Lewis Holmes

As I was hanging out in the back, chatting with author Michael Northrop, I was recognized by one of the authors of the panel, Stasia Kehoe. I was so surprised because she knew my face, my school, and my blog, but most strangely of all, she said we'd met in a bar. I was quite confused until I pieced it together: last February, after a book event in Brooklyn, I went to Kid Lit Drink Night with two book bloggers I had just met and spent a very long time chatting with an awesome woman whose name I promptly forgot. Lo and behold, that was Stasia! Weird but cool!

This event was a lot of fun, especially because of how it was organized. An audience member would pick a slip of paper from a bag and read a line from a book. Then, the author of the book whose line was just read would introduce and talk about said book. An hour breezed by. I can honestly say that I hardly noticed the time passing!

That next Sunday, I went back to (you guessed it) Books of Wonder for a signing featuring Rae Carson, John Connolly, Matthew Cody, Lauren McLaughlin, Delia Sherman, Leanna Renee Hieber, and the revered Tamora Pierce. Since Tamora Pierce is one of the biggest YA fantasy writers out there, and has been for some time, the event was super crowded.

Tamora Pierce, John Connolly, Rae Carson, Matthew Cody, and Leanna Renee Hieber
Lauren McLaughlin

I made sure to chat briefly with Leanna Renee Hieber before the event started, because, for another funny story, my dad had sat across the aisle from her on an airplane the night before. I was quite impressed that she was able to produce my name from that cute little story.

Finally, the Thursday after that, I went back yet again to Books of Wonder for another event. This one was for a group of 2011 debut authors, including Charlotte Bennardo, Natalie Zaman, Tami Lewis Brown,Victoria Schwab, Lia Habel, Kathy McCullough, Alissa Grosso, Christopher Grant, and Kiera Stewart.

Charlotte Bennardo, Natalie Zaman, Kathy McCullough, and Christopher Grant
Tami Lewis Brown, Alissa Grosso, Kiera Stewart, Victoria Schwab, and Lia Habel

I had lot of fun chatting with my friend Rachel from Bookshelf Lust as well as author Lia Habel, who is just hilarious. I didn't have any books to get signed (sadly, my copy of The Near Witch is in another state!), but it was awesome to get to hear about some pretty awesome-sounding books.

Can you believe I saw 37 different authors last month (some more than once)?! That's for an average of over 1 author a day!

1 munch(es) :

holdenj said...

What a great November! You certainly saw a great selection of wonderful and diverse authors. My November was no where near that exciting!

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