Wednesday, April 30, 2014

AuthorsRMyRkstars: Stephanie Perkins, Victoria Schwab, Marissa Meyer and more!


February 1st 2014

Megan Shephard and Jessica Spotswood

Ellen Oh, Victoria Schwab, Megan Shephard, Stephanie Perkins and Jessica Spotswood came to the Bethesda Library in the beginning of February. It was quite the mixture of genres and styles. From mainly romance novels like those of Stephanie Perkins, to ancient Korean warriors like Ellen Oh, to retellings of classic novels like Megan Shephard, it was a great selection of authors no matter what you like to read.

Stephanie Perkins, Victoria Schwab, Ellen Oh
I have heard of all these ladies' novels but had only read Anna and the French Kiss and Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins. I am on a book buying hiatus while I try to read the all the ones I already have, so I was determined not to buy anything unless it sounded wonderful and I had to have it signed!

Megan's thinking face
I was weak, however, once Victoria Schwab talked about her love for darkness in books. I knew I had to get The Archived (also it has an awesome cover). Dead people housed like books at a library? Disturbing and intriguing. Here is my post (totally out of order) where I met Victoria for the second time at NoVa Teen Book Festival if you are interested.


Anyway, I knew Stephanie Perkins would have the longest line so I hopped right up to that one! She was so sweet, complimenting my fox shirt and showing me her fox necklace. During the panel portion, she talked about how she wrote Lola and the Boy Next Door for ten years then wrote Anna and the French Kiss which got published first. I told her I've been writing the same thing for 5 years and she said maybe I should set it aside and work on something new until I was inspired again.


When we went to take the picture, Stephanie had to lean over the table since she was in the middle and there was no way to get behind her. She leaned over, I put the book up and BAM. Smacked her right in the face with it. -_- Good going Markella. Author abuse.


Although I didn't get their books, I still got a picture with Megan Shephard and Jessica Spotswood. I vow to read their books one day! 


Victoria was very nice and we had a good conversation about wanting to read darker YA. Victoria and I are actually about the same age (she might be a year or so older) which surprised me because I always think of authors as older than I am. I need to stop thinking like that since I am now on the WRONG SIDE of 25.



Last I went to talk to Ellen Oh. She asked if I come to these events often. I said I did. She said she recognized me from other things. I was surprised cause I don't think I've seen her in person before. Maybe she was just making small talk. It was still a nice thought that an author would recognize me. 


February 12 2014

I saw Marissa Meyer in Bethesda last year when she was promoting Scarlet. This post here recaps that time. This time she was promoting Cress with a special guest, the narrator of the audiobook Rebecca Soler! Let me tell you, the narrator was awesome. The amount of voices she could do and they way they captured each character was great. (Sorry not talking about Marissa much because I covered a lot of what she said in my first post.)



Rebecca talked about the most difficult scene in the book to do and she said there is a conference call with a ton of different countries in Cress and she had to do different accents for each character. She also said her favorite character voice to do is Iko, Cinder's android friend. 


I made sure to tell Marissa happy birthday since she had come to the area around the same time last year and we had a birthday dinner with her. 


Here's a video of the narrator I stole from someone else. Enjoy!




Next up!

Day Days Tour: Tahereh Mafi, Veronica Rossi, Kiersten White and Sophie Jordan

Then:
Jenny Han