My author events have increased exponentially this month from my normal null to the Texas Teen Book Festival and Leigh Bardugo in the last couple of weeks. Plus, I have plans to tag along with friends to see Ryan Holiday at BookPeople this Tuesday.
This past weekend was the Texas Book Festival. Another one of those big and perfectly matched events for me that I’ve never attended before. And look, I may have talked myself out of this one — especially with the predictable hangover hanging over me yesterday — but Rainbow Rowell had a panel.
I never shut up about her book Carry On — my favorite book ever (not counting Harry Potter, clearly) — and the sequel last month, Wayward Son, was my most highly anticipated book of the year. So I nursed my hangover all morning and got myself downtown to the book festival in the afternoon, even after a friend I was planning to attend with had to bail.
It was a beautiful Austin day — eighty degrees, no humidity, clear skies — and the capital was surrounded by book lovers as event tents circled the square. I only spent a couple of hours at the festival, hitting the Book Seller’s tent first where I picked up a copy of Rainbow Rowell’s new graphic novel Pumpkinheads and a signed copy of Wayward Son (if you’re keeping track I now own three copies of Wayward Son but this one she had signed earlier that day . . . how could I not?).
After wandering the street for a bit I came across the YA tent where a panel was about to start and saw that I had time to kill before going to Rainbow’s event. The panel title was “What I Never Told You: Spinning Secrets and Uncovering Truths” with authors Tiffany D. Jackson, Jennifer Mathieu, Matthew Mendez, and Randy Ribay. I stayed when I caught Tiffany D. Jackson’s name — I haven’t read her books yet but my friend Katie recently mentioned her books as comp titles to my own manuscript so she’s someone I definitely wanted to know.
The authors discussed writing about difficult subjects in YA, family history and personal identity translated to the page, and the call to action in fiction. It made me love writers and the work all over again.
And then Rainbow’s event, of course, where I was there a half-hour early and we all still scrambled for seats when the panel changed over. People love Simon and Baz’s story as much as I do and during the Q&A I can hear it the shaky questioners’ voices how much this story mattered to them just as Harry mattered to me. It’s awesome to see, even if that ugly competitiveness in me wants to throw down the fighting words of “I love it more” . . . I think I need tattoos before I can do that though.
I didn’t get a chance to wander the entire festival, after Rainbow I was ready to go re-hydrate at home before meeting my dad for dinner (who had an overnight in Austin for work), but I was happy I went. Keep dipping my toes into the book world that I love. And I got some great book recommendations from all the authors on that first panel.
With Love,
Natalie