Saturday, October 5th,
2013
I’ve been
meaning to write this blog post for over a week now, but due to finals and me
catching the plague, it is a bit late. I
apologize for that!
Now
then! Wordstock! How had I never
been to this before? How had I never heard of this before? This year, I only found out about it via one
of my favorite authors, Maggie Stiefvater, whom I got to meet at the fair.
But more on that later.
This annual
book fair (the tickets were $7 for a student and $11 for an adult; children
were free), is held in Portland at the Oregon Convention Center, which is in
itself an incredible thing. Take a look
at these pics of the interior.
Books,
books, books! Books everywhere! Publishing representatives everywhere! Famous authors everywhere! At first, I was quite overwhelmed. But everyone was super friendly, and I gained
a ton of useful information on publishing and “getting my name out there.” I purchased three books at the fair: a used
copy of The Invention of Hugo Cabret
by Brian Selznick (this has insanely awesome illustrations), The Enchanter Heir by Cinda
Williams Chima, and The Dream Thieves by
Maggie. I also acquired a
Wordstock tote and a few buttons.
After wandering
about for an hour, Katie, Rach and I decided to grab coffee. And who did we run into at the coffee
shop? Oh, an old friend.
…Cinda Williams Chima!
Rach invited
Cinda to sit with us, which she did! Katie
and I could barely contain our excitement as we were granted this amazing
opportunity to ask her questions about being a writer. It was a memorable time. And after Cinda left, Katie and I were
totally fangirling.
Coffee was
followed by more wandering (a video game convention was also happening at the
convention center on this day…we sat for a bit and people watched…so many Pikachu cosplayers...ha ha ha) and
then lunch. Nothing beats a good burger!
Finally, it
was time for the YA book signing to commence.
I got my copies of The Enchanter
Heir and The Dream Thieves signed. It was AWESOME to finally meet Maggie, one of
the primary authors who inspired me to write my YA novels. In fact, I started writing my first book, The
Otherkind, after reading Shiver. And
take my word for it…she is just as awesome in real life as she is on her social
networks!
...Anyway! Wordstock was an eye-opening experience for me as a writer. Next year, I intend to stay the night in Portland and attend Sunday's workshops and other events, too. Hopefully by then, I'll have a book or two to publicize!
I have some fun (non-event-related. Ha ha) blog posts coming up...stay tuned! Thanks for reading. ♥
