March 17, 2013

Tucson Festival of Books Recap

So last weekend I went to my first book festival! I had so much fun and it was overall a really great experience! So I'm just gonna recap the panels, the authors I saw and the people I hung out with at the festival. 

So I met up with Kylee from Babbling of a Bookaholic! This girl is so freaking awesome!!! I had a blast hanging out with her at the festival!!! She is the sweetest! She is such an easy person to talk to and its very easy to find something you have in common with her (besides books!). I definitely see me and her hanging out and going to more signings and festivals in the future! 

So the first panel we went to was called Fragile on the Outside - Steel on the Inside: Gutsy Girls with Gayle Forman (Left), Elizabeth Eulberg (Middle) & Maggie Stiefvater (Right)! This panel was so much fun! Gayle was a little sick, she was coming down with a cold but still kept such a great attitude throughout the whole day so props to her for that. And Elizabeth and Maggie. These two were just bundles of energy! They were loud, fun and constantly made the audience laugh! And I learned things about each author from this panel as well!

Gayle Forman - So she's traveled! She actually like took off for a few years and just traveled. I thought that was so cool! I also learned that Just One Day came to her in a dream, but that its like the only book thats come to her in a dream. I thought that was interesting as well because I know a ton of authors actually do get a majority of their book ideas from dreams so I thought it was interesting knowing only like one of her books came to her that way so far. 

Elizabeth Eulberg - Ok, so this girl is full of life and energy and is so much fun to be around! Now, I had only heard of her and one of her books from a New Releases post I did last year so I wasnt really familiar with most of her books. It was funny, Maggie and Gayle kept making her answer all the questions first! Just listening to the way she talked about them, and the fact that they are all contemporary really sold me on her books though. Both me and Kylee ended up buying a copy of The Lonely Hearts Club to get signed after listening to her talk about it! Apparently though, it took her like 17 drafts of that book to finally get it to a solid publishing point. Thats a lot of drafts people!! She also worked in the publishing industry for a while as a publicist before writing her own books! I thought that was so cool as well! So apparently she kept her writing a secret when she first started, but ended up telling her friend Dav Pilkey (author of the Captain Underpants) that she was writing and he totally ratted her out to her friends at work (in the publishing house she was working at). But that ended up being a great thing for her! The thing I loved the most though was when she was talking about her newest book "Revenge of the Girl with the Great Personality" (published March 1, 2013)! So originally it that was just the working title of it because she totally thought her publisher would make her change the title to something shorter. But it ended up sticking! She got so excited talking about this book!! Theres even a bit of a story behind it. So apparently in the past she's been told she has a great personality. But back then having a great personality was usually associated with someone who was fat and ugly. So when people used to say that to her she'd be like "WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?!?!" And so she incorporated that into the book, because the book is about the sister of a seven year old pageant girl who gets all the attention, and while the main character Lexi is smart, funny and popular she's never been able to get attention from anybody. So its about Lexi stepping out from behind the shadows and pretty much getting back at those people with the beauty but without the great personalities! I didn't even realize Elizabeth had a new book out, much less what it was even called, but the moment she started talking about it I knew I'd have to read it sometime very soon! So now I have the book ordered and on hold at the library!

Maggie Stiefvater - This girl!!! Hahaha. So before the panel even started she was being a spaz! Moving around everyone's name tags and such! It was funny to watch! But anyways, So I learned that Maggie wore black all the time in her teens (AND THIS WAS BEFORE GOTH WAS COOL, LOL) (She pointed that out). LOL! We also learned that she feels like she's most like the Water Horses (I think that's what she said, like 99% sure) in The Scorpio Races! She also wrote short stories when she was in her late teens and tried very hard to get them published but got rejected for them. But it also taught her very early how to deal with rejection from publishers. 

So ya. That was the first panel! It was fun to watch!! After that me and Kylee got some books signed and met the authors and even took some pics with them!

So there's Maggie, Me, Gayle, Kylee & Elizabeth!! :)

So after lunch we just walked around some more and eventually ended up at the Teen & Author Meeting Place!

So at the Teen & Author Meeting Place Elizabeth Eulberg & Maggie Stiefvater were crashing each others panels! That was a lot of fun to watch!!! These two girls are just so full of energy! LOL!

So the next panel we went to was pretty awesome as well! Loves Me or Not? With Complications featuring Amy Fellner Dominy , Tamara Ireland Stone (Middle) & Elizabeth Eulberg (Right). So Elizabeth was just as fun in this panel as she was in the first! And I had honestly never even heard of Amy before so I got to hear about someone new! But I wanna focus mainly on Tamara.

Tamara Ireland Stone - She is seriously the sweetest person like ever! I loved hearing her talk about Time Between Us!! She even got all excited when we were talking to her after the panel about the cover to Time After Time. She had asked me and Kylee if we had seen it and we hadnt so she got all excited and took out her phone and showed it to us! She is just so great to talk to as well. She talked to us for like 10 mins and it was just really awesome. It was great to see how she really made an effort to interact with her readers. :)

So thats Kylee, Tamara & Me! We had such a blast talking to her and taking pics with her!