Event: Tahereh Mafi & Marie Lu in San Diego [Restore Me tour]

Hello! Last Tuesday I attended Tahereh Mafi’s signing in San Diego, part of her Restore Me tour. The event took place at Mysterious Galaxy and it was hosted by author Marie Lu.

I almost didn’t make it, I had to run two blocks to catch the bus, and thankfully I arrived just on time, picked up my copy of Shatter Me and sat down. Tahereh and Marie came out at 7:00 pm.

The event was mostly Marie asking things to Tahereh and complimenting each other. After a brief introduction Marie started telling her first impression of Tahereh and how she discovered Shatter Me in BEA when it was about to be released, and praised Tahereh’s writing that continuously grows as Tahereh ages, she was 23 when Shatter Me came out in 2011. Marie commented that Shatter Me is a book that stuck with her because of the peculiar voice of the protagonist, Juliette, something new and refreshing.  Then the questions started.

[I recorded the whole event, and this below is a brief transcription, I omitted some parts to make a summary of the whole event.]

Marie Lu [ML]: What was like to return to the Shatter Me world?  You wrote the first three

novels and then you stepped away from it for a while. How did you get the idea of continuing?

Tahereh Mafi [TM]: It’s a fair question, the last book came out in 2014, 4 years ago. What happened is that at the time I thought the series was over, I felt it ended in a very good place, Juliet had grown in a great way and I was ready to move on. I think it was more that I was ready to move on artistically and creatively that that the story was over, but in the moment it felt like a good choice. I wanted to do something else, and I did, I moved into a completely different direction I wrote middle grade novels for a couple of years.

ML: Amazing middle grade novels. Furthermore and Witchwood, which if you guys haven’t read them yet, please do.

TM: And it was really fun, a different point of view, and a very fantastical magical realism. They’re very different and I had a lot of fun with that. I fully moved on from the Shatter Me series, and I was having a conversation with someone about the books one day and they asked me a question about the characters names, and I couldn’t remember their names, and I thought I probably should know the answer to that question. So I re-read them start to finish in like 12 hours because I should know what they’re about, and I enjoyed them.

ML: Because they’re great.

Event: Holly Black and Susan Dennard in San Diego [Cruel Prince and Sightwitch Tour]

Hello! On February 16^th 2018 I attended the book signing of Holly Black and Susan Dennard for their Cruel Prince and Sightwitch book tour. The event took place in San Diego at Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore.

I arrived around 15 minutes early, but I couldn’t find a seat this time, so I picked up my copy of Cruel Prince and bought another book and then stood around waiting for the event to start. This time the event was moderated by booktuber and book seller, Kaitlyn, so the event was in an interview format, that’s why I recorded the audio of everything and transcribed it, it was easier than summarizing.

K: What drew you to the world of fairies?

 

Holly Black

Holly Black [HB]: [I didn’t  record Holly’s answer :c]

Susan Dennard [SD]: I started reading fairy tales and fantasy when I was young. I was a teen, we didn’t have YA, so all I could consume was adult fantasy mostly from the library. And we didn’t have Amazon either back then, so you could only get what was on the shelf at a bookstore or a library which meant you frequently didn’t read things in order or a whole series, you would skip book four.

K: Do you create or discover your characters? What is your process like?

HB: I used to say I created my characters and get frustrated when people talked about how their characters veered off in certain directions. My characters are lazy and they wouldn’t do a single thing for me, they don’t want to be in the book. None wants to be in a book, right? It’s the worst thing ever to find out you’re the protagonist of a novel, nothing good will happen to you. And then I would say that in Darkest Part of the Forest, which is the faerie book I wrote right before this one, I had a character whose name is Hazel who had a secret that I didn’t know. And I was like “this doesn’t seem possible, how does she have a secret I don’t know”, but she did and it was kind of the big turn of the book. I would like to say that I create them but sometimes is a process of figuring, creating and then extrapolating from their behavior all of the things they want to hide from me.

SD: I definitely create some characters. I found this with a novella I wrote for my first series, I created maybe a secondary character, but when it comes to write a novella from their point of view, I realize I don’t actually know them. So I have to discover them, it takes time. Sometimes they don’t have a voice in my head and are not ready to talk to me. And I push their word, deadlines. But it’s a process of waiting for that voice to come, and I learned that if I don’t have a voice, I cannot write that story until the voice is in my head, and everything I write is just going to be crap.

Event: Neal Shusterman in San Diego [Thunderhead tour]

On 02/10/2018 I had the chance of attending Neal Shusterman’s signing in San Diego, which was part of his Thunderhead book tour.

I arrived 15 minutes early and snatched a seat. Before Neal’s appearance, the staff of Mysterious Galaxy did a small trivia of the Arc of Sychte books to give away double sided posters to the winners. I haven’t read the books yet so I didn’t participate, but the posters were really pretty and many people participated, even more than once.

At around 2:10 Neal appeared, introduced by one of the book sellers. He started telling us

how he got the idea for Scythe around the time his book series Unwind was published, at the same time as the hunger games when YA dystopia was still not a thing. He asked himself what would happen if we lived in a perfect world, no illness, no war, and no death.

The premise of this trilogy is set in the far future, where death by natural causes has been virtually eliminated thanks to advance technology and an advanced computer system known as "ThunderHead" that controls society. The Scythes are an independent organization tasked with deciding who must die as overpopulation has remained a problem.

Event: C.B Lee in San Diego [Not Your Villain tour]

Hello! On October 15, besides attending the signing of Maggie Stiefvater, I stayed for the C.B Lee signing, author of the Sidekick Squad series.

Her signing was part of the tour she is doing commemorating the release of her novel Not Your Villain, second book in the Sidekick Squad series. The first book in the series is titled Not Your Sidekick, and it’s contemplated that the series will be four books, each book is focused in a different character with a common goal. Below I’ll leave a brief synopsis of both books that have been published until now.

Not Your Sidekick: Welcome to Andover… where superpowers are common, but internships are complicated. Just ask high school nobody, Jessica Tran. Despite her heroic lineage, Jess is resigned to a life without superpowers and is merely looking to beef-up her college applications when she stumbles upon the perfect (paid!) internship—only it turns out to be for the town’s most heinous supervillain. On the upside, she gets to work with her longtime secret crush, Abby, who Jess thinks may have a secret of her own. Then there’s the budding attraction to her fellow intern, the mysterious

“M,” who never seems to be in the same place as Abby. But what starts as a fun way to spite her superhero parents takes a sudden and dangerous turn when she uncovers a plot larger than heroes and villains altogether.

Not Your Villain: Bells Broussard thought he had it made when his superpowers manifested early. Being a shapeshifter is awesome. He can change his hair whenever he wants, and if putting on a binder for the day is too much, he’s got it covered. But that was before he became the country’s most-wanted villain. After discovering a massive cover-up by the Heroes’ League of Heroes, Bells and his friends Jess, Emma, and Abby set off on a secret mission to find the Resistance. Meanwhile, power-hungry former hero Captain Orion is on the loose with a dangerous serum that renders meta-humans powerless, and a new militarized robotic threat emerges. Everyone is in danger. Between college applications and crushing on his best friend, will Bells have time to take down a corrupt government?

Event: Maggie Stiefvater signing at San Diego [All the Crooked Saints tour]

Hello! On Sunday October 15th I had the chance of attending the Maggie Stiefvater signing in San Diego, a stop of her All the Crooked Saints tour. This was a ticketed event and even thou I pre ordered the book two weeks before the event I was number 51 in line.

Maggie Stiefvater signing a book. 

The day was super hot and, as always, I was late, so couldn’t snatch a chair. When I arrived Maggie hadn’t started the event yet, so I picked up my copy of All the Crooked Saints, picked up a book plate and waited for the talk to start.

Maggie told us some background story about how All the Crooked Saints came to life. She loves traveling but doesn’t love traveling by plane because she always gets detained for second inspections, she believes they think she’s on drugs or does explosive devices. So for one of her tours she decided to travel by car only, one of her cars, from Virginia to California. Turns out, the car had a problem she didn’t fully address, and started failing on the road, shaking. In one of those multiple stops she ended up in the middle of nowhere in Colorado, a dessert land. In the small town she was at, while the only mechanic fixed the car, she talked with a counter Mexican middle aged woman, who after knowing Maggie writes paranormal stories for a living, shared with her some stories none believes.

Event: Marie Lu & Kiersten White Signing in San Diego [Warcross tour]

Hello! It’s been a while since my last post, this due the giveaway I was organizing, I didn’t want that entry to get lost so more people could see it and participate.

Last Saturday, September 23, I attended the last signing of Marie Lu for the Warcross tour, for this one she was going to chat with author Kiersten White. 

Warcross Summary

For the millions who log in every day, Warcross isn’t just a game—it’s a way of life. The obsession started ten years ago and its fan base now spans the globe, some eager to escape from reality and others hoping to make a profit. Struggling to make ends meet, teenage hacker Emika Chen works as a bounty hunter, tracking down players who bet on the game illegally. But the bounty hunting world is a competitive one, and survival has not been easy. Needing to make some quick cash, Emika takes a risk and hacks into the opening game of the international Warcross Championships—only to accidentally glitch herself into the action and become an overnight sensation.

Convinced she’s going to be arrested, Emika is shocked when instead she gets a call from the game’s creator, the elusive young billionaire Hideo Tanaka, with an irresistible offer. He needs a spy on the inside of this year’s tournament in order to uncover a security problem . . . and he wants Emika for the job. With no time to lose, Emika’s whisked off to Tokyo and thrust into a world of fame and fortune that she’s only dreamed of. But soon her investigation uncovers a sinister plot, with major consequences for the entire Warcross empire.

Marie Lu.

I arrived kind of late, the event had just started and I had to pick up the book I had preordered online to get a ticket for the signing line. The whole event was a chat between both authors, which have a super nice chemistry making everything fun and interesting.

Marie Lu talked mainly about her new book, Warcross. She mentioned that she wanted to write something lighter because the books she had been working on were dark (the Young Elites), and so she wrote Warcross for herself. She decided to challenge herself writing a duology instead of a trilogy, that way she could get rid of the middle book that’s always hard to write, but she didn’t think the structure would change that much. She mentioned that writing a duology turned out to be harder because she has to combine two books into one.

Lu also mentioned that right now Emika, Warcross main character, has become her favorite because she put so much of her own personality into Emika, so she identifies with her a lot. And finally she said that she would like to see Warcross adapted as an anime, she is currently watching Sword Art Online, an anime with a similar story about immersion videogames.

Event: My Experience at San Diego Comic Con 2017 / Sunday, July 23.

Hi! It’s been a while since my last post, this time I’ll talk about my experience at comic con this year.

Marissa Meyer (Renegades, The Lunar Chronicles)

 I only attended one day, Sunday, the last day when everything is cheaper but there are less signings and the con ends earlier. Several days before the con, I made a budget and listed the book related events I wanted to attend.

I did not attend any panels because as I only had one day to enjoy the con, I wanted to explore the exhibit hall as much as possible, but I would attend some post-panel signings.  

I arrived exactly at 9:00 am and picked up my con bag, left a backpack with wells in the coat check with some books inside, and started my adventure in the exhibit hall.

Marie Lu (Legend, The Young Elites, Warcross)

The first signing I had planned was Sarah Khun, author of Heroine Complex. The signing would be held at the exhibit hall from 10:30 am to 11:30 am. When the time arrived I got lost and couldn’t find the booth, when I finally did I noticed they were only selling a special box that contained the second book, and other bookish things, but the price was $60, so I went to a bookstore booth named Mysterious Galaxy to buy the book, but turned out Mysterious Galaxy had signed copies of the book, all the copies they had were signed so I thought I could postpone buying it to buy another book and buy it signed later in their store.

The second signing I planned to attend to was Pierce Brown’s (Red Rising trilogy), that would be held at Del Rey booth from 11:30 am to 12:30 pm. It was a ticketed event, first come first serve. I got a ticket and waited in line for half an hour but the line didn’t move, I only moved 2 people, so I left because other signing was approaching.

Event: Now I Rise Launch Party

Kiersten White

Hello everyone, today I’ll talk a little about an event I attended last week: Now I Rise Launch party.

Now I Rise is the second novel in the And I Darken trilogy. The event took place in the indie bookstore Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego at 7:00 pm.

The first part of the event was a talk by Kiersten White followed by a Q&A session.

During the event the author talked about different topics about her other books and And I darken, but after I continue I will provide you with the synopsis of And I darken.

No one expects a princess to be brutal. And Lada Dragwlya likes it that way. Ever since she and her gentle younger brother, Radu, were wrenched from their homeland of Wallachia and abandoned by their father to be raised in the Ottoman courts, Lada has known that being ruthless is the key to survival. She and Radu are doomed to act as pawns in a vicious game, an unseen sword hovering over their every move. For the lineage that makes them special also makes them targets.

Lada despises the Ottomans and bides her time, planning her vengeance for the day when she can return to Wallachia and claim her birthright. Radu longs only for a place where he feels safe. And when they meet Mehmed, the defiant and lonely son of the sultan, Radu feels that he’s made a true friend—and Lada wonders if she’s finally found someone worthy of her passion.

But Mehmed is heir to the very empire that Lada has sworn to fight against—and that Radu now considers home. Together, Lada, Radu, and Mehmed form a toxic triangle that strains the bonds of love and loyalty to the breaking point.

As you may notice by the synopsis, And I Darken is historical fiction, White says she was inspired to write this story after she traveled with her husband to Romania in 2010. There she learnt a lot about Vlad the impaler.

One of the most difficult things about writing historical fiction is that historical writing depends on the point of view the author takes, but White did her best to remain on neutral grounds.

And I Darken took a lot of research work to be as accurate as possible; it took a year to write.

White commented that there is already a cover and title for the third installment, but she can’t reveal any of them yet. The final book in the trilogy will be released next year, 2018, along with two other books.

This month, another book of Kiersten White will be released; it’s a middle grade book titled Beanstalker and Other Hilarious Scarytales. This book is a compilation of retellings that end in a funny and unexpected way, and it’s illustrated. She will attend this year San Diego Comic Con and be on a panel titled What’s Hot in YA alongside Lish McBride, Jason Reynolds, Nicola Yoon, Brendan Reichs, Beth Revis, Megan Whalen Turner, Jen Armentrout, S. Jae Jones, and moderated by Nathan Bransford.

White said that she had fun writing And I Darken and Now I Rise, but that her most memorable writing experience has been Beanstalker and Other Hilarious Scarytales, because is the book that was easiest to write and she enjoyed the process with her children.

To finalize she said that she wanted to write spies series next but her editor told her to stick with fantasy. She is very open to write every genre except for contemporary, she feels she is very far from those experiences now and that wouldn’t be able convey the feeling or be believable. Her writing style has change during the years because her life has changed.

After the talk and Q&A session, it was time to the signing, and she was giving each person an exclusive print of Lada. I talked with her mainly about Comic Con and as I gift her some Mexican candies and had a Latin American copy of And I Darken (Hija de las Tinieblas), she told me that she used to study Spanish when she was in college and that she can speak it if she takes her time to think what to say.

The event was such a good experience; it was a fun night full of laughter and a relaxed vibe. I can’t wait to start reading the And I Darken trilogy.

Event: Shannon Messenger in San Diego

Hello, on Thursday November 17, 2016 I had the chance to attend the signing of Shannon Messenger

Fifth installment of KOTLC

at the bookstore Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego.

            Shannon Messenger is the author of the Keeper of the Lost Cities series, and the Sky Fall trilogy. The reason of her visit to San Diego was the tour she is doing for the release of the fifth installment of Keeper of the Lost Cities, Lodestar. The event was supposed to start at 6:00 pm, but it started a few minutes late. Messenger looked tired, and with a good reason, she flew from Arizona straight to San Diego.

            The first part of the event was a talk about the new book, the author thanked the public for being there and talked about how successful the series has become thanks to the fans, now Keeper of the Lost Cities is in the list of bestselling series of the New York Times.

            After the talk the event took the format of a Q&A session, the public was really participative, and most of the participants were kids (I felt so old), during the session Messenger said interesting things about the series, how she became an author, what is like to be an author, and some tips to aspiring authors.