Last
Sunday, the Hudson Valley YA Society at Oblong Books & Music, Rhinebeck
hosted another really fun and inspiring author reading and signing featuring
Young Adult authors Cassandra Clare, Holly Black and Sarah Rees Brennan.
I’ve
been anticipating this event since I first saw the posting on Oblong Books’
Hudson Valley YA Society website. And I’m glad that I RSVP’d early and
pre-ordered some books to pick up at the store and get signed at the event. I
was sure that it would be huge, and it was, with over 300 booklovers in
attendance!
(photo
credit – oblongbooks.com/Rhinebeck)
I
went with my friends from our SCBWI Shop Talk group, Lobsang and Patrick. We
arrived at around 3:00pm – that’s when the website post said that they would
start seating people. But there was already quite a line – and I remembered
that Oblong’s information also stated that people could get a signing line
ticket reservation as soon as 10:00am, when the store opened. It was clear that
these authors are “rock stars” and that this was going to be one of the biggest
YA book events, at Oblong or at any other local bookstore, in recent years.
The
seating area in the small bookstore filled up quickly, and by the time we got
to the event area, there were only spaces on the floor. We gladly sat on the
floor near a bookcase, so we could have something to lean against. We left room
for our Shop Talk friend Heather, and we also saw another friend, Kristin,
there.
(Lobsang
and Patrick)
(me
and the boys!)
Oblong
Books’ manager, Suzanna Hermans and her Hudson Valley YA Society co-founder
Jennifer Laughran kept us all entertained with raffle ticket giveaways and a
presentation of their favorite recent Young Adult titles. That was fun, and
made the hour long wait seem to pass quickly. Then, Jennifer introduced
Cassandra Clare, Holly Black and Sarah Rees Brennan, to loud applause and
cheers.
(Jennifer
Laughran introducing the “rock star” authors!)
I
love Holly Black and Cassandra Clare’s writing and I’m so impressed with their
talent at creating stories about strong, relatable heroines in extraordinary
yet believable urban fantasy settings. Cassandra Clare is the author of the
bestselling modern fantasy Mortal
Instruments series, as well as The
Infernal Devices, a Victorian-era steampunk-influenced prequel series. And
Holly Black is the bestselling author of the Modern Faerie Tales trilogy; the Curse Workers trilogy, and the collaborator, with illustrator Tony
DiTerlizzi, of the children’s Spiderwick
Chronicles series. It was so cool to see that they were appearing together,
along with Sarah Rees Brennan. I wasn’t very familiar with her work – I’ve only
read a couple of her short stories in anthologies – but I was interested in
learning more about her Demon Lexicon
series, as well as Team Human, her
new novel that’s co-written with Justine Larbalestier.
(Authors
Sarah Rees Brennan, Cassandra Clare and Holly Black)
It
was so great to hear the authors read from their own work – and, even better –
to get a special preview of their upcoming books – each one read from a book
that hasn’t been published yet.
Holly
Black read the first chapter from the typed manuscript of her newest work “The
Coldest Girl in Coldtown” – due out in the Fall of 2013. It’s so new that she
said, “Nobody has seen it, including my editor!” It’s her own unique take on
the vampire mythology, and based in the same world as her same-titled short
story that appeared in the vampire anthology, The Eternal Kiss (2009, Running Press). It was cool and intriguing
– I’m looking forward to reading it when it’s released.
(Holly
Black reading from The Coldest Girl in
Coldtown)
Cassandra
Clare read – on her iPad – the prologue of Clockwork
Princess, her final book in the Infernal
Devices trilogy, that’s due out in March 2013. She said she just turned it
into her editor. It was interesting, and she drew everyone into her
Victorian-era magical world easily. I haven’t read that trilogy yet – but I
definitely will have read the first two books, by the time of the publication
of Clockwork Princess.
(Cassandra
Clare reading from Clockwork Princess)
And
Sarah Rees Brennan read from her darkly humorous gothic novel, Unspoken – the first in a series titled The Lynburn Legacy – that’s due to be
published by Random House this September. It’s about a teen girl, Kami, who
finds out that her longtime imaginary friend is a real boy. Sarah was so into
her reading that she stood up and acted out her main character’s flirty banter
as she tries to get a date with the boy – she even started to unbutton the
bottom of her sweater!
Everyone
laughed, as Cassandra Clare and Holly Black looked at their friend with fond
amusement! And Sarah’s reading definitely made me want to read Unspoken as soon as it’s released in the
fall.
The
authors also talked about their current new releases. Holly Black’s Black Heart is the third book in her Curse Workers series. It’s set in a
world like ours, but there’s a small group of people who can do magic. Magic is
illegal, so they’re con artists or mobsters – “magicians as a mob during
prohibition,” as she described it. The magic is touch magic, so everyone wears
gloves because no one knows who has the magic ability. For research, she read
several books on con artists, like The
Big Con (by David Maurer) – she said there are all kinds of cons and
schemes that con artists use to cheat people. Interesting reading – I’m sure it
helped give the series its noir-ish edge.
Cassandra
Clare’s City of Lost Souls is the fifth
book in her very popular Mortal
Instruments series that follows “Shadowhunters” Clary, Jace, Simon,
Isabelle, Alec and Magnus, and their adventures in the secret “Downworld” of
modern-day New York City – a dangerous place of demons, vampires, werewolves and
other paranormal creatures. There were some huge fans of her series in attendance,
and they asked some very specific questions about the books’ characters and
plot developments. They also asked what her favorite character pairing is to
write. Cassandra said Jace and Clary (from Mortal
Instruments) – it was her first pairing, and has a sense of the forbidden.
She also loves Alec and Magnus (also from Mortal
Instruments) and the love triangle of Will, Tessa and Jem from Infernal Devices. She said that it’s fun
to make each pairing or triangle different.
Many
fans were excited about the news of a Mortal
Instruments movie. Cassandra said that it’s very exciting, and seems to be
moving along in development, although she sometimes “freaks out” that it won’t
ever happen! It takes a long time to develop a book that’s optioned for a
movie. Right now, it’s in the casting stage, and she’s pleased with the casting
choices so far. Lily Collins has been cast as Clary – she most recently starred
in Mirror, Mirror. Jamie Campbell Bower has been cast as Jace –
he appeared in Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd;
and the TV series Camelot; as well as
a small part in Twilight: Breaking Dawn.
And Robert Sheehan, of the TV series Misfits,
has been cast as Simon. But Cassandra admitted that in her “dream movie,”
Robert Downey Jr. would be Jace and she would be Clary – she loves Robert
Downey Jr.!
Team Human, Sarah Rees
Brennan’s recent release, is a collaboration with Justine Larbalestier (author
of the Magic or Madness trilogy). It’s
a humorous book about a girl who tries to stop her best friend from falling in
love with a vampire. With its cover tagline, “Friends don’t let friends date
vampires,” and satirical references to Twilight
and other vampire tropes, it sounds like a fun read – I’m really looking
forward to it.
Even
though Team Human is a vampire satire,
Sarah readily listed several vampire novels when asked about her influences.
She loves Anne Rice’s Interview With the
Vampire and The Vampire Lestat,
and said that she totally understands what she described as “vampire fever” –
she humorously said she would leave her window open every night! She also liked
L. J. Smith’s vampire novels – especially Secret
Vampire. “My secret is that I’m a vampire!” she laughed, pretending to be
the book’s main character. Jane Austen is another influence, with her “awesome”
banter, that Sarah described as a “table tennis of wit!” And also, Diana Wynne Jones, with her
combination of funny and fantasy – “That’s what I aspire to be!”
Holly
said, “A ton of books have influenced all of us!” She said she read Anne Rice’s
Interview With the Vampire over and
over when she was in eighth grade! She also listed many urban fantasy authors:
Neil Gaiman, Tanith Lee, Terri Windling, Ellen Kushner and Charles de Lint. I
love all of those authors – it was great to hear her mention them.
Cassandra
mentioned Lord of the Rings – she’s
read the trilogy every year since she was a kid. When she worked in a bookstore
after college, she discovered the Golden
Compass series – she described it as an exciting and complex story with
teen characters. That influenced her interest in writing for teens.
Like
Sarah and Justine’s Team Human
collaboration, Holly and Cassandra have also co-written books with writing
partners. Holly mentioned writing The
Spiderwick Chronicles with Tony DiTerlizzi – she said that collaboration
pushes you to be an even better writer. And Holly and Cassandra have co-written
three short stories for anthologies, and are now writing a five-book
middle-grade fantasy series for Scholastic – the first book in the series, The Iron Trial, is to be published in
Fall 2014.
They
also answered several questions about different aspects of writing. They each
have a different way to keep track of ideas – Sarah writes down things that
wake her up at night, but then can’t decipher her scribbles. She also tells
others about her ideas. Cassandra stores folders of her notes for different
book ideas on her iPad. But she told a story of how she and her husband drove
around Wales while she took notes for Clockwork
Princess, and then she went to take a picture of an old building and
deleted all of her notes by mistake! Holly wouldn’t have those technical
problems, because she has an “old-school notebook.”
They
discussed their favorite resources for character names. Sarah said they use baby
name books, and Holly said they also use online sites like nameberry.com. Sarah
said that contributors to that site make up their own lists, like “names that
are evil!” Holly said she takes names that she loves and then adds prefixes or
suffixes to them to make up fantasy character names. And they have “stolen”
names from each other – Sarah named a character “Holly” in Unspoken.
Holly
said she stole the name “Cassel” from a friend of Cassandra’s for her Curse Workers books, and then she met
him! And Cassandra said her ex-roommate was a doctor, and she used to steal her
patients’ names!
All
three are in the same writing and critique group together. They all agreed that
having a critique group has a positive effect on their writing. You write your
manuscript, and then you can trust and fall back on the group and the members’
feedback and advice. Then you can go bigger and wilder than you thought,
because the group pushes and encourages you.
When
asked how their friendship began, they answered with funny stories. Holly met
Cassandra a week after publishing her first book, Tithe, in 2002. Cassandra went to Holly’s first-ever book signing
at Books of Wonder in New York City, and she brought all of her friends. Holly
didn’t have any prior experience with book signings, and Cassandra hadn’t been
to one before, so they didn’t know that authors don’t usually hang out with
their readers afterwards. But Holly and Cassandra got along so well that after
the event, they went shopping together for shoes!
Sarah
met Cassandra at a New Year’s Eve party in Brighton, England in 2003, while she
was a college student and Cassandra was working as a journalist. Then Sarah
moved to New York City and remembered that Cassandra lived there, so she called
her up. Cassandra invited her to a dinner party, and told her that she would
introduce her to Holly there. But Cassandra was late, and Sarah found herself
talking to a woman. She asked her, “Which one here is Holly Black?” and the
woman said, “I am!”
Now
they go on writing retreats together, like a recent trip to France, where
Cassandra and Holly did some research and worked out the magical details for
their new book series. It was evident that they are longtime friends who are
also huge fans of each other’s work. That was so inspiring – it made me hope
that one day in the not-too-future, my Shop Talk friends and I will all be able
to share in our writing success. The publication of Kim Sabatini’s Touching the Surface is very inspiring
and encouraging – hopefully many more of us will follow.
Afterwards,
I was able to meet each of the authors and talk with them a bit as they signed
my books. And Heather offered to take pictures – thank you, Heather! I think
they turned out well!
It
was so great to meet Holly Black – and to have the opportunity to tell her that
she’s been one of my favorite authors since I read Tithe when it was first published. I told her that it’s so cool to
know that many of her favorite authors are also my favorites, too. I mentioned
that I’d seen Terri Windling and Ellen Kushner when they did a fantasy event at
Rhinebeck’s Omega Institute some years back, and she said that she wished that
she’d gone to that – she heard it was great.
(me
and Holly Black)
Cassandra
was seated in the center of the long table, so I couldn’t really pose with her
for a picture. But Heather snapped one of us talking as she signed my books. I congratulated
Cassandra on the upcoming film, and said that it’s awesome that her characters
and magical world are going to come to life in the movie. She said it’s been really
exciting. I also said it would be great if her Clockwork series could be made into a movie, and said that although
I hadn’t read them yet, I’m looking forward to them – I love the idea of
Steampunk Shadowhunters. She said that it’s been really fun to write the
historical aspects of the series.
(Cassandra
signing my books)
And
I thanked Sarah for one of the most entertaining readings I’ve ever seen! I
also confessed that I’d only read a couple of her short stories in anthologies,
but that now I want to read all of her books. She laughed and said dramatically,
“That’s how I draw them in!” I said that I’m really looking forward to reading Team Human because I’ve always loved
vampire novels (even though I have a love/hate feeling about Twilight) and I admire her for finding
humor in all of the vampire tropes. She said that’s because she loves them too!
(me and Sarah Rees Brennan)
Afterwards,
I felt like I was on a high, as I talked with Lobsang, Heather and Kristin. We
all agreed that it was one of the best signings we’d been to, and we were
inspired by the authors’ longtime friendship and support of each other. We all
said that someday, it would be so great to do a group reading and signing
together, just like Cassandra Clare, Holly Black and Sarah Rees Brennan. I
think that’s a great goal to work towards, and I hope we’ll all reach it one
day.
(future "rock star" authors Kristin, Lobsang and Heather!)
(Kristin, Lobsang and me)
(Kristin,
me and Heather)
And
the great feeling of being part of a creative and supportive writing group
carried over into the next week, when Ian and I met up with Lobsang, Patrick,
Michelle, Lisa and Irene for a casual, fun and motivating writing lunch. I feel
fortunate to be surrounded by so many talented people, and it’s great to be
able to trust them with my writing, knowing that their feedback is constructive
and will only help me to make my work better and better. And it’s always great
to hear their artful and imaginative stories and poems, and to be certain of
their potential to become published works.
So
thanks again to Suzanna Hermans and Jennifer Laughran for another wonderful
event at Oblong Books – one that helped to fuel the dream of one day sharing
the table with my writing friends at our own Oblong Books author event!
