Literary Love: Author Signings!

One of my favorite bookish things is author events and signings. This is something I've often wondered would I be doing if I hadn't started blogging. I really don't think so. And now I can't imagine my life without these bookish events to look forward to. They are so much fun!

I still get so nervous for them though. Meeting authors is scary for shy people! I never know what to say, even now after doing it so many times. But I've come a long way since writing this post nearly four years ago. Wow, has it been that long? But this is a post I've shared many times as it's one of my favorites. You know the one where I vent about what to say to authors at signings. And I even mention a certain author that I could not have imagined meeting and then it happened. And I didn't faint or anything. Almost, but not quite.

Now a days sometimes, if I'm lucky, all I have to say is "Hi, I'm Suey." And then they might say "Oh, Suey from Twitter?" Or "Yes, I've heard of you!" Or even, "Yes, I've read your blog." Of course, I love it when that happens. Definitely not what was happening four years ago! What a most awesome blogging validation, yes?

What I love about author signings:

• meeting the authors of course. It's fun to see their personalities. Sometimes they are just as nervous as me. Sometimes they are so witty and funny I'm blown away. Sometimes they have a spiel to give and sometimes they just wing it but always, it's interesting to see what they are like.
• getting books signed. I guess this sort of devalues a book in theory, but for me, having a huge collection of signed books is quite cool. I should count them sometime. There's a lot!
• hanging with bookish friends. I rarely go to these things alone. Much of the fun is the gathering together of like minded crazy fanatic people. It's awesome.
• new books! Most of the time the event is surrounding the release of a new book that I've been dying to get my hands on! This is in and of itself exciting enough!

Some (just some) of my favorite authors I've met are: 

• Markus Zusak of course. It goes without saying. (And can I just say, please let him come again. I want to hear him say, so so bad, "Oh, yeah Suey! I know you!" I really truly might faint this time if that happened.)
• Jamie Ford, most recently.
• Maggie Steifvater
• Megan Whalen Turner
• Brandon Sanderson
• Dan Wells
• Stephenie Meyer
• Richard Peck
• Lois Lowry
• Jonathan Mayberry
• Veronica Roth
• Julie Berry
• Marissa Meyer
• Ally Condie
• Shannon Hale
• Christopher Paolini
• Haven Kimmel
• (And if I wasn't feeling lazy and tired I'd go find pictures and links for them all!)

We are very lucky to have so many events around here. And every year it just gets better and better. The next event is coming up this Friday. It's the mass author signing in conjunction with the LTUE conference that I go to every year. There'll be tons of local authors there and many from out of state too. I'm sure I'll be telling you all about it!

What do you love about books today? Link up your Literary Love post here!