Surrounded by Authors!

Today we had an awesome event at the library....  a last minute author signing before Christmas for all those who really wanted to give away a signed book! The difference for me this time, instead of just stalking the authors, I actually got to work at the event and "host" a couple of them. And by host, I mean, sit with them and talk when/if they didn't have a signing line.

On one side of me was the famous Brandon Mull. His line was constant and steady, so we didn't get to chat much, but it was a blast to hear him interact with his fans and be so very personable and asking them questions and such. What an cool guy he is.

Brandon Mull

On my other side was a brand new author whose first book just came out in September. He didn't have much of a line and was excited for each and every person who came to him! Especially if they had already bought the book before the event! His name is Eric Patten (writing under E.J. Patten) and his book is called Return to Exile, a middle grade adventure that will, he hopes, end up being a six book series. Of course I bought it! So I will get back to you on my thoughts for the book itself. I will have to bump it up the pile.

Dan Wells signing, Eric Patten along side.
Rob Wells and Tyler Whitesides in the background.

I was also able to chat a bit with Rob Wells (whose book Variant I loved and plan to give a nephew) and Dan Wells, who had an ARC of his next book Partials sitting there very temptingly. I begged him for info on how to get my hands on one and he said, hey, I gave one to the library! So I tracked down which co-worker currently has it and said, I'm next!! Yay! Very excited for a turn with that one!

I didn't get a chance to mingle much more than that, though we all know that I'm terrible mingler anyway. But Ally Condie did request that I get a Beyonders book signed by Brandon Mull for her. So that was fun. And I did say hi to Bree Despain.

We managed to get all the authors together for a picture, and mine turned out very dark, but I tweaked it and hopefully this one isn't too bad and you can kind of see them all.

Eric Patten, Tyler Whitesides, Ally Condie, Rob Wells, Jessica Day George,
Brandon Mull, Dan Wells, Nathan Hale, Jed Henry
Rick Walton, Kristen Chandler, Bree Despain
(I linked to them all in this post, so I'm not taking the time to link again!)


And here are some more candid type shots:

I only saw a couple other bloggers there. Jenny came to say hi to Dan Wells, and Diana was there doing a very good job at mingling. Holly from Book Harbinger was working at Rob and Tyler's table, so hopefully she'll blog about anything interesting she learned from them!

Anyway, I had a blast. Hopefully we can do it again sometime!