Tucson Festival of Books Take Two

Tucson Festival of Books

March 12th & 13th of 2016

If you've been around for a while, then you'll know that last year I went to the Tucson Festival of Books for the very first time and had an absolute blast. I've been waiting for it to be time again ever since. I never knew that my city hosted an event full of my people, crazy right? This year was absolutely amazing and I am left waiting for the same great experience next year.

Day one I went with my cousin and his girlfriend as we all planned to see R.L. Stine. My favorite quote from his presentation happened to come after some story telling, "I always make up my true stories." This earned a laugh from the audience. Afterwards, the plan was to meet him and get my copy of Eye Candy signed, but after 45 minutes in line we gave up. Turned out that his line was going to be around 3 hours long and I had other things to do! It's still quite the bummer though. While I stopped at the Sweet Sixteens' booth I was able to meet Kathleen Glasgow and Shannon M. Parker and they were both so kind! Shannon even gave me a signed copy of her debut, The Girl Who Fell. Later in the day, I was lucky enough to finally meet Danielle Paige, who I had previously talked to on Twitter, and get my copy of Dorothy Must Die signed! I also met Rae Carson, Suzanne Young, Karen Bao (unfortunately I forgot to ask for a picture), Aprilynne Pike, Heidi Heilig, Liz Fenton, and Lisa Steinke. I wasn't able to meet Tommy Wallach, but the UofA Bookstore did have a signed copy of Thanks for the Trouble and I just had to buy it! I may have gone home with a lovely sunburn, but it was worth it to have such a wonderful day!

Day two I was lucky enough to experience with a childhood friend that I hadn't seen in years! The first thing we did was go and say hello to Zac Brewer and get my copy of The Blood Between Us signed, which I had gotten the previous day at the Epic Reads booth. SCORE. I was also able to meet Sara Raasch, Terry Brooks, and Caragh M. O'Brien! Drisana and I went to a panel about World Building in YA Lit featuring Zac Brewer, Carol Goodman , Caragh M. O'Brien, and Sara Raasch. My favorite thing said from this session was from Zac. The question was whether you write for you or for your fans and Zac said, "My minions, that's what I call my fans, are so similar to me that I kind of assume that they'll include themselves in the story." I can't wait to see if I feel this when I read The Blood Between Us. Which if you've been living under a rock, will be the first book published under Zac Brewer rather than Heather Brewer. How awesome is that?! You do you. Lastly, I purchased a painting from the Creative Juice booth and definitely hope to take a class there soon!

Two of the most exciting things to happen during this amazing festival happen to have a little something to do with debut authors. The first being meeting the lovely Abigail Johnson. We got to talking while in line for Danielle Paige when I just had to compliment her super cute boots. I'm glad I spoke up because as it turns out her debut will be out later this year and she gave me her card! If you're interested If I Fix You comes out in the Fall and Better Read Than Dead will be reading it in January of 2017. The second exciting thing is that while talking to Kathleen, we discussed possibly doing an interview! Her debut, Girl in Pieces, will be out on September 6, 2016! Overall, I was able to meet some seriously awesome people and I cannot wait until next year! If you'd like to donate to the Tucson Festival of Books, you can do so on their website. This helps keep the festival free to all of us bookworms.

Xoxo,

Gabriella

I went a little nuts. Here's my haul for the weekend!