Blue Lily, Lily Blue Tour - Maggie Stiefvater, Oct. 30th

Thursday, October 30th, my daughter and I went to Park Road Books in Charlotte, NC to see Maggie Stiefvater again as a part of her Blue Lily, Lily Blue Tour.  I was really excited about this because even though we saw her at the Bookmarks Festival, very few of my picture were even salvageable from that even because one I had to use my phone, two the venue was really dark and three Maggie is a very active presenter, she's constantly moving which I think you'll notice in the photos to follow.  I took about four times as many as what I'm posting here, but with the exception of the ones that include my daughter the rest were completely out of focus.  But these pictures are still much better than that ones I took of her at Bookmarks.  

The stop was hosted at Park Road Books which I completely forgot to take a photo of so I snagged one off a Google Search.  

In my defense about forgetting, this was scheduled the same night as a Panthers Game and I spent over two hours in a traffic jam getting there.  The traffic jam literally started somewhere around 30 miles North of Charlotte and continued right up until I got into the parking lot.  We passed no less than seven small accidents on the four lane including the people directly in front of us at one point.  I'm a paranoid driver so even though it means I often get cut off, I leave about a car length between me and the car in front of me even in a traffic jam.  That day I was fortunate that I do because the car in front of me rear-ended the car in front of them.  When we got into the city the traffic was so thick I missed the turn to the parking lot and spent another 20 minutes lost in Charlotte.  Needless to say I was completely stressed out when I arrived so when I was reviewing the photos I was kicking myself for the things I forgot to photograph.  For those of you who don't know Park Road Books is the store that has the connection to Carrie Ryan, as in if you order a Carrie Ryan novel from Park Road Books and tell them you'd like it signed they'll call her to have her come in and sign it before they ship it to you.

The events at the store are usually organized by Sherri, who's like my favorite book store employee ever.

Now there are a lot of nice book store employees out there, don't get me wrong, but I started talking to her via email when I was ordering my books in advance for the event because I like to make sure they have what I'd like to get signed and since I don't have an endless bank account I have to put what I'm buying into the budget to make sure we can afford it.  Making my purchase in advance also means I'm spending less money when I go since I'm already going to have additional gas expenses and the like.  With that in mind finding someone who gets this and goes out of their way to help you is like a God send.  Since I heard about this signing before it was completely scheduled from Carrie Ryan when she stopped in at the UnMarked tour and I couldn't get a book I asked Sherri if she'd be at this event too and she assured me that Carrie would probably be there so I could not only buy copies of her books but get them signed and personalized when I was there.  So since I'm a hardcover addict and really don't like buying paperbacks, and all my Carrie Ryan books are ebooks, I wanted the first Forest of Hands and Teeth novel in Hardcover.  The thing is they no longer publish this book in Hardcover, I know Amazon says they do, but I tried ordering that when Sherri told me she couldn't order it from the publisher, but would try contacting the author, what Amazon by the way has listed as hardcover is the Library Edition which is sort of like a hardcover but with no dust jacket, the hard part of the cover looks just like the paperback edition.  This will not match the other titles on my bookshelf and wasn't what I wanted.  While I'm sitting there thinking I guess I'll deal because it's better than paperback, Sherri was getting in touch with Carrie Ryan and explaining my dilemma.

Not only did the awesome Carrie Ryan attending the signing, but she brought four hardcover copies of The Forest of Hands and Teeth with her, two of each edition published since I wanted this book for both my husband and myself.  Needless to say I was super impressed by both Carrie Ryan and Sherri from Park Road Books.  The picture I took didn't really do either of them justice, but taking decent photos of these two are a couple of things I was kicking myself about forgetting after that fact.  Both of them really went out of their way for me and I really appreciate it.

Additionally if you're looking for a bookstore employee who actually knows what you're talking about when you mention an author and can not only gush about the books with you but tell you all sort of fascinating stories about her interactions with the author, Sherri is the book store person to go to .

Carrie Ryan is equally awesome because one she went out of her way to get me the edition of her books I wanted, two she remembered me and my family and three she came to Maggie Stiefvater's signing because one they're friends and two she wanted to see the presentation, however she still sat there and signed a massive stack of books for me.  I really wish I had a few better photos to share with you of these two because they really are amazing.

Carrie Ryan is the New York Times bestselling author of the critically acclaimed Forest of Hands and Teeth series and Infinity Ring: Divide and Conquer. Currently she’s working on a four book middle grade fantasy adventure series co-written with her husband, John Parke Davis, the first book of which, The Map to Everywhere, will be out November 4, 2014. Her next YA is a romantic thriller titled Turnabout which will be out summer 2015. 

A former litigator, Carrie now writes full time and lives with her husband, two ornery cats and one gullible dog in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Find Carrie online at her Website, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, & Amazon.

The Presentation

Now since it was just my daughter and I and I can't operate the video camera on my phone and my regular digital camera, I do have a video but it's just a short clip of the Q & A at the end of the presentation, but I'll post that first to give you an idea of just how great Maggie Stiefvater is in person.  She's worth a two hour traffic jam and going to see multiple times because each presentation is fresh, funny and entertaining.

Now for the photos, please bear in mind that Maggie is just full of so much energy when you see her in person providing readers with such a great presentation that she's constantly moving.  I am not, nor will I have be a professional photographer.  So while I took at least fifty photos of her the majority of them were completely out of focus.  Sorry about that.

Maggie Stiefvater is not only a great author but she's just a fascinating person.  Her life is just so interesting.  Honestly I could probably spend a couple of hours just listening to her talk about her life. To give you an example of why she began the presentation with talking about ghost stories.  It was the day before Halloween so it was really a time appropriate topic.  She spent her childhood living in a multitude of real life haunted houses.  She talked about how when she was a child she and her siblings used to knock on this wall in one of her homes and even though no one was on the other side it would knock back and that just one of many spooky memories she shared about the homes she and her family lived in as a kid.

She told us about her sister just sort of knowing things, when she was racing she and her family were going to a race and her sister calls and says you're going to need a rim for one of the front tires and she thought it was strange but she brought one anyway and sure enough she needed it.  However she also went on to say that she didn't really believe in psychics, not the kind that pretend they can predict your future at will.  She told us stories about how when researching The Raven Cycle series she visited a few different psychics, including the automated one from the movie Big and things that they'd told her.  It's really hard to explain just how entertaining these stories were because I don't have a memory for details so I can't tell you word for word what she said or really describe how she said it, but I can say these stories are just so entertaining and funny.

As I mentioned above this was the second time we've seen Maggie Stiefvater, but the presentation she gave was mostly new material and all very entertaining.  We had a wonderful time.  And of course she talked about The Raven Cycle which I really truly adore as a book series, so that was seriously awesome.  I'm telling you if you ever get the chance to see her speak in person, go, it's a can't miss presentation.

Maggie Stiefvater is an artist, musician, and the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the young adult novels Shiver, Linger, and Forever. Her books in the Shiver trilogy have been hailed by Publishers Weekly as “lyrical tale[s],” and by BookPage as “beautifully written and a perfect indulgence for readers of all ages.” There are 1.7 million copies of the trilogy in print, and since publication, rights to more than 36 foreign editions have been licensed. 

Her novel, The Scorpio Races, was named a Michael L. Printz Honor Book by the American Library Association and was named to Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal, The Horn Book and Kirkus best of the year lists. Publishers Weekly selected The Raven Boys as a best book of the year in 2012. 

Stiefvater’s new book, Sinner, follows Cole St. Clair, a pivotal character from the Shiver trilogy. Readers of the Shiver trilogy think they know Cole’s story. Stardom. Addiction. Downfall. Disappearance. But only a few people know Cole’s darkest secret – his ability to shift into a wolf. One of these people is Isabel. At one point, they may have even loved each other. But that feels like a lifetime ago. Now Cole is back. Back in the spotlight. Back in the danger zone. Back in Isabel’s life. Can this sinner be saved?

Find Maggie Stiefvater online at her Website, Facebook, Goodreads, Amazon & Twitter.

Now another of the things I'm kicking myself for forgetting to get pictures of was the signing so I'll just move on to the haul.  One of these days I'm going to show up to a signing and be able to remember to photograph everything I want to and get the post up in a timely manner, it just probably won't be any time soon.

The Haul

So as you can see in the top photo I bought more than I posted the signings for but those are all Christmas Presents.  The birthday present which was for a late December Birthday got sent back to NY when I took my best friend's daughter for the weekend and she decided she didn't want to wait to open it. So since she already knows what I got her I decided to include it in my post.

As I said earlier we had a great time.  The store was really helpful and accommodating and Maggie Stiefvater is just an amazing presenter.  It was really great to see both Carrie Ryan and Maggie again.  Plus both of them remembered my family so that was just great, it makes us feel pretty special as readers when authors who have so much going on in their lives recognize and remember us.

Bios and Bio Photos came from an internet search and are copied from there.  The rest of the photos unless otherwise stated are ones I took.  If you get the chance to see Maggie Stiefvater or Carrie Ryan in person, trust me you want to go, because they're just amazing people.  If you see one of their books check it out because they're just great writers, there's a reason they've both made the best sellers list.  And I hope you've found this post as fun to read as it was to write.

As I've mentioned in other posts any photos I post that I took or videos that we filmed feel free to share anywhere, but while it's not required I would really appreciate a link back to here because followers would be good.  The more active followers I can gain the more sources of information about future signings I can acquire.  Volunteers to help with this project would be really appreciated. The email if you'd like to do a guest post, help with the calendar or just want to contact me about something is bookishevents@gmail.com.

I've currently got a small swag giveaway going on here.  And I'll have a much bigger one in January when I have more cash to actually ship things.  Trust me I've got a bag started because mostly my swag addiction extends to buttons and key chains, the rest of the cool items I get I put aside because sharing them with others via a later giveaway is always good.

Thanks for reading :).