On Friday, some of my friends and I had the chance to go to an event hosted by my library with Ally Carter, the author of the Gallagher Girls and Heist Society series, as the guest of honor. I was really excited to go as I had heard so many good things about her books. (I’m nearly done with Heist Society right now and I’m really liking it so far.)

When Ally Carter was introduced, all those in attendance who didn’t forget to bring their big sunglasses (thank you, Debbie, for letting me borrow yours so I could stay in the second row) put them on so we could greet Ally that way. It was a lot of fun to see her reaction as we all put them on at the same time.

Ally is a fantastic speaker and one of the first things she said was that she doesn’t like to bore people will all the details and background information, both in speaking and writing. She just likes to get down to business and so we went right into the Q&A. There were a lot of great questions asked at the event and I love the way she answered them. She’s hilarious and just has a great way about her. If she was nervous, I didn’t notice because she was just super fun and bubbly the entire time.

Here are the questions and answers that I thought were the most interesting:

• Someone asked how she researches for her stories since they’re about spies and thieves. She answered that she does a lot of googling and watching capers. She also said she’s probably on NSA watch lists with all the things she googles.
• Someone asked if the love triangle between Kat, Hale, and Nick is ever compared to the love triangle in Twilight. She said that she doesn’t think there’s a love triangle because, “Dude! Hale!” She thinks that Hale is threatened by Nick, but there’s no contest because, “Dude! Hale!” But, she’s glad that people interpret her books the way they want to.
• She was asked if she could be anyone in any one of her books, who she’d choose. She said that she’d want to be Kat, go to Gallagher Academy, and date Joe Solomon.

As she was talking, she gave a lot of great advice to aspiring authors. She told a story of how she was writing a story when she was in high school and became frustrated that it wasn’t as good as To Kill a Mockingbird, her favorite book. Her mother told her to never compare someone’s finished work with her first draft because you don’t know what that person’s first draft looked like. She also said that the single most important piece of advice she can give to aspiring authors is to stop talking and thinking about writing and just start writing, just get it on paper; it doesn’t have to be perfect the first time through.

And, for those of you who live in Utah or are members of the LDS Church, this piece of information may be interesting to you. Before she started to write Heist Society, she still had her day job and was in Utah on a business trip. The people who hosted her took her to Temple Square and the LDS Church museums so she could learn a little more about Utah and Salt Lake City. While she was exploring the museums, she saw the name “Hale” on one of the placards and it stood out in her mind as a great name for the character Hale.

Even though a couple of my friends couldn’t make it and I missed having them there, I had a great time. It was a fantastic evening and time well spent with friends and an amazing author. I’m super excited to read all of her books now.

On Saturday, some of my friends and I had the chance to go to an event hosted by my library with Markus Zusak, the highly acclaimed author of The Book Thief, as the guest of honor. Markus Zusak is an Australian author, and even though I haven’t had the chance to read any of his books yet, I knew this was a once in a lifetime opportunity and so I had to go.

My friends and I showed up early so we could get good seats. We were just a few rows from the front and off to the right of the podium. We had a very clear shot of Markus (he asked us to call him Markus instead of Mr. Zusak) during the presentation.

This was the best signing event I’ve ever been to. Markus’s presentation was hilarious, entertaining, enlightening, moving, and just overall fantastic. He’s a great public speaker and when he read one of the chapters  (“Confessions”) from The Book Thief, the audience was so speechless, we almost forgot to clap. He told some personal stories: one about growing up with his older brother and another about an embarrassing moment he had with a bookstore owner when his first book was published. He related the story about his older brother to his writing process. It was very endearing. One of the things he said to other writers is that you’re a writer when you still want to write even if there isn’t a chance for your next book to be published (or published at all for that matter). (If you want to watch a video of the presentation, check out my friend Suey’s post about the event. She videotaped it all.)

When it came to the signing, which started at 7:00 pm, you’d think being in the third group (within 75 people from the front) that we would’ve had the chance to see Markus very early in the game. We weren’t done until 8:30 pm because Markus took the time to talk to each of the people in line. He did more than just sign his name; he personalized every book by drawing pictures in some and writing maxims in all. Even though it was frustrating for people to have to wait so long, I think it was worth it because of the time he took with each and every one of us.

When it was my turn, I didn’t really know what to say to him since I hadn’t read any of his books yet. I thanked him for coming to Utah of all places and taking the time to sign our books. And then, because he’s Australian and I’m really weird about Australia, I told him that I have an irrational fear of Australia. He asked me why that is and I told him it’s because I saw a documentary about all the poisonous snakes there. He proceeded to tell me that snakes are okay and that he had one in his house once and it wasn’t so bad. He also told me that they have the most poisonous spider there and I told him I knew all about the funnel spider and that (and the most poisonous octopus) was another reason I was afraid of Australia. He laughed and drew a snake in my book and wrote, “Snakes are okay.” It made my day that he humored me and talked to me about snakes.

After we got your books signed, the library set up a guest book for people to sign and thank Markus for coming. I wrote quite a bit, like most others did, but I made sure to thank him for humoring me and talking about snakes. Now, he’ll always remember me. Hopefully, that’s a good thing.

It was a fantastic evening and time well spent with friends and an amazing author. You can rest assured that The Book Thief will be the next book I read after I’m done with my current one.