Heir of Fire Book Signing

On Saturday I went to the Barnes & Noble in Glendale to attend the book signing for Sarah J. Maas's Heir of Fire (my review here!).  Two other authors were there, who I was unfortunately not very familiar with - Robin Benway (author of the Also Known As series) and Nina Berry (author of the Otherkin series).  Obviously I was there for Sarah, but I would like to check out those author's books sometime - has anyone here read them?

I wasn't able to get there as early as I would have liked, and the seats in front of the stage area were already filled in, so my friends and I lined up in the back.  And I wish I had taken more pictures!  It was just so far in the back, that I wouldn't have gotten very good ones, and then of course as we were in line and getting close to seeing Sarah, I couldn't think properly!   

The talk before the signing was fun - I thought the moderator asked some interesting questions and to me Sarah was so funny - all her answers to the questions made me laugh I think!  She also had a touching comment near the end about not letting anyone stop you from writing if that's what you really want to do, and when she was able to call her Mom and tell her that she was a NYT bestselling author, her Mom told her she regretted ever telling her to be realistic about her dreams.  Sarah teared up, I teared up, I think everyone teared up, it was good times.

That came up because someone asked the authors what advice they had for potential writers and Sarah had four bits of advice -

1. Finish what you start

2. Get a critiquing partner

3. Don't listen to the haters (amazing that she had teachers who said that fantasy books are not real books!)

4. There's no expiration on your talent, you don't have to get published right now - live your life.

I have this audio clip too from the talk - where the question was why the authors wrote YA, and Sarah first talks about how she's a 12 year old girl inside, why Outlander is her obsession, and she sort of writes YA by default since she started her series when she was 16.  The Outlander part was just precious.  I totally understand the need to find my favorite fictional character. :)  (Sorry the audio is so low - I should have stood near a speaker!)

Unfortunately since this was the last stop of Sarah's HOF tour, she had a flight to catch after and couldn't take as much time as she usually does at her signings (but I think she took much more time than she should have - according to the people who were handling the signing.)  I love how she engages with everyone, and is just so freaking nice!  I always try to think of something to say, but it was hard - I so wish I said more, I didn't even tell her how much I loved Heir of Fire!  Cause I so did! Ugh, but whatever, Sarah is so good at making everyone at ease.  Literally going to her signings are the best author interactions I've ever had.

Shout out to Stacie at Wonderland of Reading and Kayla at The Thousand Lives who I got talk to for a bit at the signing!  I'm sure there will be recaps of the signing on their blogs soon (on Thursday for Kayla!)