Saturday, January 15, 2011

Time For An Outing

Today I met one of my favorite authors ever. Maggie Stiefvater. For those of you who don't know her, she's written amazing books like Shiver and Linger (and the upcoming release FOREVER) and books that I have not read (unfortunately, but believe me, I will be remedying that) Lament and Ballad.
She had a book signing at the Borders 5 minutes away from me. So of course, I packed up my kiddos and rolled on over. Meeting up with my best friend, her hubby, and their adorable little boy in the process.
Now... I had to find something for the girls to do, some way to entertain them while Maggie was talking, because let's face it... they LOVE to fight with each other. Non stop. All the time. Seriously. I decided, while looking desperately among the shelves for Lament and Ballad and coming up empty handed, to get them their own books. Both picked out sticker books. And apparently that meant they had to get toys as well. So Alanna picked out a little wolf, and Lydia picked out a little puppy dog. I found this funny considering we're at the signing of an author who writes about werewolves.
She's totally sweet and she's funny. Up until the invention of Facebook... I always pictured best selling authors (or really just any authors) as the stuffy, stuck up type. Intimidating and just kind of scary to be around. Being professional book writers and all.
With Maggie (and really, with most of the authors that I've had the pleasure of "meeting"), my impression of professional writers flew right out the window. As cliche as it sounds, she's a normal person. She lives maybe 20-30 minutes from where I grew up and spent most of my life. She's got a wicked sense of humor. She's completely down to earth. She found something she loved to do, and got other people to love what she does because she's so good at it.
She was even kind enough to take a picture with my girls after everyone at the signing had left with their books (or everyone that I saw, there were probably more after I left).
AND the icing on the cake?!? I was the first at the table (that's just how I roll) to get my books signed. Explained to her that, while I know she likes people to buy from the book store she does her signings in, I was unable to find any copies of her books that I HADNT read. So what does she do? Takes the copy of the UK version of Lament that she brought with her and told me that because I was the first person to the table, she'd give it to me!

So I'd say it was a pretty good day. My girls were relatively well behaved. I got to meet an amazing author/person. And I got to spend time with my best friend all at the same time.

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