Meeting Authors Jennifer Nielsen and Ally Condie

Can you believe it? I've got two more author signings I'd love to tell you about!


Jennifer A. Nielsen, The False Prince

A couple of weeks ago Jennifer A. Nielsen came to the Orem Library and gave a presentation and signing. She was a blast to listen to and I loved her presentation. I even took a couple of notes!

She asked questions like this, and then we discussed the answers:

Why do authors write? For fame? No! Because it's easy? No! Because they love the art or writing?
YES! And because they are born with stories embedded in their DNA!


What is it like to be a writer? First of all, you are by yourself a lot of the time, and you need to enjoy that. And then, you have to switch over to being with lots of people at lots of events. Being a writer means dealing with lots of ups and downs, like a roller coaster. (She told us about one of her very best ups...when the editor of the Harry Potter books toasted her at a Scholastic event and told everyone to remember her name and that they "knew her when" because she was going to go on to be BIG!)

Where do you get you ideas? Steal them? No! Pay you kids to think them up? No! From everywhere in life? YES!

Why should kids read? Because your teachers make you? No! So you don't have to do chores? No! Because it makes you smarter? Yes! For the adventure and chills and friendships? YES! (Then she told us about studies that have proven that if kids are readers they are better communicators, have more success, are more logical, can concentrate better, have strong family bonds, have a higher IQ, and a better vocabulary, etc. etc.)

Afterwards I was just going to slip on out. I had her book, The False Prince, but had loaned it out and hadn't got it back yet... plus it was already signed from the bookstore where I got it. But, then I said what the heck and came back and bought another to get personalized! And chatted with her for a bit. I told her I thought Sage reminded me of Gen from The Queen's Thief series and had she heard that from others. Yes, she said, a lot!

Anyway, now I'll do a giveaway for that other copy sometime, so stay tuned. I know you'll all be so excited!!

Ally Condie, Reached

Then, just the other night, Jenni Elyse and I went to the launch party hosted by The King's English for Ally Condie's final book in the Matched series... Reached. We met my sister, Megs (from Sweet and Sour Sassiness) there also! Wahoo!

But first, Jenni and I got to participate in a blogger shindig with Ally before the actual event. There we were able to participate in a fun informal chit chat with Ally along with three other bloggers, Jessica from Books a True Story, Kimberly from The Broke and the Bookish and Jessica from Cracking the Cover. How fun is that??? Fun I tell you!

We asked her things like:

--how do you feel about being done with this series. (A little sad, a little excited, and like it's not really real yet.)

-- what's next? (another dystopian sort of science fiction-y series that feels a lot like our world)

-- why the name change? (from Allyson Braithwaite Condie in her first books.... because it looked better on these covers! And now it's also a distinction between her first local market books and the national market ones.)

-- what have you read this year that you loved? (Michael Phelps' biographies! It appears she has a bit of a crush on him!)

-- and lots of things about Reached. (look for music references, she didn't know for sure who Cassia would end up with until writing Reached, people die!..... and I can't remember what else!)


We talked about all kinds of things, for nearly an hour! It was very fun and hopefully I'll be able to go to more such events in the future.

Then we went to the main presentation where she had us listen to the first page of the book as read by the guy playing Xander. And then she answered more questions.... lots of them from kids in the audience.

Then we (Megs, Jenni and I) got our picture taken in the bubble!

And our books signed!

I've been having a blast going to all these events these past few months. Here's hoping it continues!