Greetings from Tucson! I took a last minute trip to visit my parents who are vacationing here for the month. It's gorgeous and sunny...and I'm sitting here writing a blog. Granted, I'm outside on a deck, but still. A full-time author's work is never done. Yes, me, full-time author. WOO-HOO! I've had a crazy couple weeks that I wanted to share with you all. Two weeks ago the fab Jen Calonita and I took a road trip to Pennsylvania to do some events. (Please note, I'm going to be doing a blog about Jen next week, including a giveaway of a signed copy of Jen's Secrets of My Hollywood Life to one lucky reader.)
We had a blast! During our first event at a school, we drove up and saw this:
Yes, some adorable boy used Solo plastic cups to ask a girl to prom. (We heard she said yes!) Is this not the most adorable thing you've ever seen? Chivalry it seems, is not dead. Well, at least at this middle school. You're so lucky Christina!
That night we got to do an event with the lovely Sara Shepard. It's always so much fun to get to meet other authors. And Sara is...AWESOME! Plus, she's an absolutely amazing author. I just finished reading Pretty Little Liars (I know I'm so behind) and have her latest, The Lying Game, for my plane ride back.
I could pretty much write a blog about each and every event I've done for the past two weeks, but I will not bore you with the details. But I have to, OF CORSE, talk about the NYC Teen Author Festival.
My editor, the insanely prolific David Levithan, is the coordinator of an absolutely intense week of author events in the NYC area (see my last blog post for the entire schedule). On Monday night, I had the pleasure of being on a panel entitled "Finding Voice, Giving Voice: Speaking Up for Characters" with Cathleen Bell, Jen Calonita (yes, we don't do anything without each other!), Cecil Castellucci, Brent Crawford, Brian James, Kekla Magoon, Melina Marchetta and Marie Rutkoski. I always find it a little odd to be on a panel with other authors since I am still finding my groove as an author myself. I learned a ton from my fellow panelists and have added even more to my already ridiculous reading pile!
On Friday, my publisher Scholastic hosted an event with all the participating authors for the week. It was great catching up with so many author friends, and of course making new ones. That morning I had a bit of a geek-moment, when I changed my outfit FOUR times because Libba Bray was going to be there (luckily for all of us, Libba read last). Probably my most memorable moment from the entire week was after I read, Libba asked me if I ever had theatre training since I do different voices. I think my response was something like, "No, I'm just loud." (Gah, such a geek!) But Libba liked my reading, so my year has been made!
Sunday was the ginormous Books of Wonder signing. I believe there were 45 authors signing in four shifts. I got there early (after spending the morning with the adorable Tricia from The Truth About Books blog) and got to, yet again, hang out with some amazing authors. See a trend here? You write a book, you get to hang out with other authors. But what really made my day was meeting one particular reader. As the four of you who read my blog about my Prom and Prejudice pub party may recall, there was a father there whose daughter had read The Lonely Hearts Club more than Harry Potter. So imagine my utter excitement when I got to meet the infamous daughter, Katherine!
Last year, I think I probably only signed about four books, but this year I had a line! (That could also be because I'm SUPER chatty!) But it is amazing to see how much can change in one year.
I know this blog was a little all over the place, but I really wanted to share some of the memorable moments over the past two weeks. It is such a blast to go to events and meet readers. I'm so grateful to all the booksellers, teachers, librarians, bloggers, and of course, readers who have made not only the past few weeks, but Author Elizabeth, a possibility.
Much love to you all! Elizabeth
