Living in Ohio, there aren't too many authors who come around here often. I'm so lucky, though, to have Josheph-Beth Booksellers in Cincinnati who have some amazing YA authors visit. Emery Lord lives in the area, so I've seen her a handful of times over the past four years. I was so excited to see she would be at the signing and discussion with Susan Dennard, an author who I hadn't read yet. I promptly went on to Book Outlet and ordered Truthwitch. While I didn't finish it in time for the signing (I only had 30 pages left!) I still went and had a blast!
Emery is such a fun, personable person, so her discussion with Susan was so much fun. They started off by saying they were going to approach the discussion as if they were at Emery's kitchen counter catching up. Sounded good to me! The two went on to discuss how Susan got into writing and her writing experience with Windwitch. Hearing them both talking about the hardships and rewards of writing was so inspiring and I loved learning about their writing processes. Both of them are so human and it was so refreshing to hear how writing isn't all sunshine and roses and that they both do struggle with quite a few things when it came to writing. Windwitch was pretty hard to Susan to write, especially since all of her characters had separated at the end of Truthwtich and she had to weave together a bunch of story lines into one cohesive book.
As a book blogger, I asked if they read reviews written of their books and how they dealt with negative reviews. Both Emery and Susan said that since reviews are written for readers, not writers, they try their best to stay away from them. Though, they do get the occasional glimpse and, like any normal person, it's hard for them to take the hard criticism. They were so funny talking about their reactions to reviews, though, and I loved how lighthearted they both were.
What more can I say? I had so much fun at the signing and Susan and Emery were so friendly when it was time for the signing. They both discussed how it's crazy for Susan to keep her fantasy world straight in her mind and how it's like a cloud above her head she has to keep up with. I'm already missing them and wish we could just hang out at Emery's and be best friends. Is that too much to ask?
So happy to hear you had a good time at the author signing! Living in Michigan, there aren't many authors that come here either. The last (and only author) I met was Marissa Meyer and that was like 3 years ago ):
ReplyDeleteAmber @ Escape Life in the Pages