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Welcome to the Event Blog! Here we'll post every book related event the The Reader's Garden has participated in!

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

HVYAS: October 7th 2012

HUDSON VALLEY YA SOCIETY: David Levithan, Alyssa Sheinmel, Adele Griffin, Theo Lawrence & Eliot Schrefer

 Wow, so it's obviously taking me FOREVER to write about this. 

 I'm just going to say it was an AWESOME event as always. I have some audio footage I'm still trying to clean up so I can make out the Q and A. Once I do, I'll have that on here for all of you. 

 In the meantime, enjoy some picture!

Waiting to Start.
Watching Alyssa Read.
Reading from The Stone Girl
Eliot's Bonobo baby. ^_^
Talking about her book. ^_^
Watching David Read
David Reading.
Theo talking about his book.
Reading
About to Start Signing.

    And that's it for now! (Until I can clean up the audio enough to transcribe it. ^_^

 

Monday, August 13, 2012

08/12/2012 Oblong Books & Music - HVYAS: Robin Palmer, Carley Moore & Gina Damico

Super props and thanks to Oblong Books and Music for hosting such an awesome event.  I'll probably say it every month, but I have so much fun down there. ^_^ Thank you Mel, from Girls *heart* Books for going with me once again!

This month's event was on the small side. Instead of the large scale that the last one was, this felt more intimate and friendly. (Not that they're not friendly, they are SUPER friendly.) We had prizes and refreshments and it was simply fun.

Let us start with the prizes. ^_^ When we walked in Suzanne had a basket sitting out to put our names in for the drawing. Jennifer was away this weekend at Leekycon. Lucky girl. But back to the drawings. I won! To be fair she drew out several names. Some of the prizes were arcs of Scorch by Gina Damico, there was a tote bag from Scholastic that must have had some really cool stuff in it. A "This is Teens" box, and a copy of The Diviners by Libba Bray. Of course we didn't know these were the prizes until she was giving them away.

Mel won The Diviners copy. It's a really nice copy too. (Ms. Bray is going to be there in December with Maureen Johnson. I can't wait for that one!)

I won the "This is Teens" Box.

The Box

The Inside

The Books.
So inside this really cool prize is three really sweet ARCs: Skinny by Donna Cooner, Magisterium by Jeff Hirsch and The Dark Unwinding by Sharon Cameron. Books that I have never heard of, but I'm dying to read now.

This book signing (in case you missed the title) was with Gina Damico, the author of Croak and Scorch; Robin Palmer, the author of Wicked Jealous and Cindy Ella; and Carley Moore, the author of The Stalker Chronicles.

The book signing started as any book signing does: with introductions! The ladies were totally cool and down to earth. We had a moment of crap, what am I supposed to be doing, but it passed quickly and we got down to business.

I don't believe they knew each other before the signing. Carley was really shy, which I thought to be fantastic, and Gina seemed to just jump right in and go with.  Robin talked with her hands. (I think every author does.) 

I did get to ask what they did whenever they got stuck. How they got passed it.

Carley says she convinces herself she's not stuck and just keeps writing. That there will come eventually a point when the story starts flowing correctly again and you can go back and edit the bad part later.  The point is to keep going.

Gina says she goes for a walk, or takes a shower.  She made sure to emphasize getting up and walking away often did wonders to restore the mind.

Robin said she doesn't have the luxury of writer's block. Her deadlines are too close together for her to get stuck. She said she uses the down/up method. Write everything down first, no matter how good or bad and then once it's all down clean it up.

So overall, what I learned from these wonderful woman?

Carley: Always consider the changes requested by an editor. They are most often always right that something needs changed.

Gina: Being rejected is expected. Don't stop trying because you were rejected.

Robin: Write no matter what. Write. Get it down.

Carley Moore and I

Gina Damico and I

Robin Palmer and I
Now for the best part. (There's more!) As Mel and I were getting refreshments we noticed a basket (like one of those hand held shopping baskets in the grocery store) full of books.  As we're curiously perusing (it is a book store after all) Suzanne says, "Take whatever you want they're free." 

Simultaneously Mel and I say, "You don't want to tell us that." We are after all the definition of book nerd. Did I bring some home? Of course. Here is my selection that Suzanne was SO VERY GENEROUS to give away.

Aren't they gorgeous? So now I have seven wonderful ARCs to read to add to the AWESOME autographed books I have to enjoy. ^_^ I couldn't be happier. This was an EPIC day.

Friday, July 20, 2012

Oblong Books & Music - HVYAS: Holly Black, Cassandra Clare, & Sarah Rees Brennan

July 15th 2012:Oblong Books &; Music -  HVYAS: Holly Black, Cassandra Clare, & Sarah Rees Brennan

This was a completely fun event!  I learned about it from Sarah's Tumblr and HAD to go.  Not by myself of course.  I went with Blog Sister, Mel from Mel's Book Blog.

We left Albany, NY at nine 'o clock in the morning.  I wasn't really happy about the early hour (who gets out of bed that early anyway? A sin I tell you) however, for a good signing line position (for Mel, since I pre-ordered my books so I got priority signing) We had to leave early. (It's a little over an hour drive.) ^_^ I'm so very glad we did.

It's a GREAT place, and if you're ever in Rhinebeck, NY you should definitely stop in. I personally think it's one of the best small book stores I've ever been in, and I've seen quite a few.  The staff are totally fun and cool too.

Since we arrived SUPER early, I picked the brain of a staff member for the locale low down.  There was a great farmer's market going on right next door, (well the parking lot over) there are several cafes for coffee and lite breakfast.  There's also this super cool, I think dates back to civil war, hotel that I had to take a picture of:


Anyway, it was like 10:30 and we had time to kill so we went to the BEST place to eat EVER! Seriously, it's great small town cookign at it's best. Denny's and IHOP have NOTHING on this place:

If they're not really famous yet, they SHOULD BE.  It was fantastic eating. The sausage is the shiznit.

Anyway, Mel and I killed time on a bench outside for the next few hours (I forgot to take a picture of the bench) and then it started to drip.  It was really only a sporatic sprinkle so we weren't too worried when we joined the line for seating:


This was the line at 2:15PM when we joined it.  Seating started at 3, and the event started at 4. Not too bad of a position, we were like 20ish.  But then the rain started. >_< IT was cool though because the bookstore owners moved the line inside (blocking their music selection) .

Seating started promptly, and we were good children and played nice, and didn't fight over chairs. I snapped a test shot of the table from where I sat:


I think next time, there WILL be a next time, I'll sit further back a bit and perhaps on the end so I can lean out and take pictures instead of the mostly profile view.  Live and learn right? ^_^

So for an hour we were regaled by this person:


Whom, from my understanding, is co-owner of the bookstore AND a great lover of books.  She's a TOTALLY great person and if you go to the store you MUST say hello! She's got a great personality and she's totally nice. I even argued with her over the scary content of Ashes by Isla J. Bick (You might remember I received an ARC of it and reviewed it here) and that was freaking awesome.  She shushed me. Lol.

Anyhow, so to the meat and potatoes:



So in order: Holly read to us first from her not even her editor has seen so to be vampire novel. (SQUEE: Holly Black + Vampires = Love.) Then Cassie read the prologue to Clockwork Princess.  (T_T It's sooo sad but I LOVE it.) and lastly Sarah read from her newest (unpublished) book Unspoken. As you can see from Holly's reaction Sarah playing out her reading simultaneously was HILARIOUS.

Afterwards we got to ask questions in which they gave out prizes for asking. ^_^ Totally cool! Sarah was giving out ARCs of Unspoken, Holly was giving out gloves (If you've read the Curseworkers books you know why) and Cassie was giving out TMI and TID jewelry.  I sooo wanted Sarah to pick me, but sadly (not really, lol) Holly picked me. ^_^ She was out of gloves so Cassie gave her this:


It's a REALLY AWESOME Iratze Keychain. It has taken it's place on my keys and will forever stay there. (Ignore the manuscript under it. I'm in the middle of editing so it's taken a permanent place on my desk. >_<) I LOVE MY KEYCHAIN. ^_^

To continue with the fangasm, questioning went on for quite a bit before Suzanne (I'm pretty sure that's the woman I showed you a picture of in the beginning, if it's not, whoops. I know her as the keeper of the stickies) hastened a close.  HOWEVER, Cassie and Holly had one last embarrassing story to tell before they wrapped up.  About Sarah and a swimming pool, that I don't feel I have the skill to retell so I won't. But trust me when I say it was funny. 

Then we all lined up, by out signing groups (remember it was important to arrive early for Mel?) to get our books signed.  I had Demon's Lexicon, White Cat and City of Lost Souls to be signed.  I was being conservative. There were people there with BAGS, huge BAGS of books to be signed. I am pleased to report everyone got ALL their books signed. (Or at least so far they had by the time I left the claustrophobia into open space.)

I have some great signing table memories though.  Conversations on Coffee, chocolate, spoiling TVs (as Sarah likes to tell what's going to happen to those that haven't seen it yet) and Holly's distaste for zombies.

Signing Table Pictures:
Sarah writes funny stuff when she signs. ^_~ (I am Team Steal Stuff.)

We're just a little crazy.
*hand gesture to the negative*

Oh, remember when...
See, this is what I'm talking about.
That's not *exactly* how it happened... see...
I must Poke Cassie.

You ruin the Show for me.
She Tells ME whats going to happen.

I don't think it's ruining the show.


Just some of the crazy moments and conversations we had. It was total fun and total exhaustion.  I'm so very happy they came, and if I could thank them for it in any way I would. ^_^

What each of them has taught me:

Sarah: Telling people spoilers is okay. It's like sprinkles on cake. It makes the cake better. <-Her words not mine.

Holly: Working in a colloboration is cool.  It helps to have another mind when yours isn't working.

Cassie: Valentine in a clown suit is not the best edit. Instead we should try... (aka compromise)


Who else has memories from the event to share?

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Event News Page Opening



I'll be posting all book related event summaries and news here as they occur.  (pictures included)