The second day of Anderson’s YA Lit Conference was called Fandom Frenzy. It was a lot more high energy – with quick and fun games and author speed dating. While the first day was geared toward teachers and librarians (you can read my recaps posted over the last couple of days), the second day was geared toward the YA readers themselves.
As a fun bonus, on this second day I got to hang out with some other bloggers, including Brittany from The Book Addict’s Guide and Raychelle from Steele Reviews (and her OTSP Secret Sister, whose blog I can’t name because Raychelle still doesn’t know what it is – I’m impressed that Elizabeth could meet her sis in person and still remain a secret!). Plus, I got to see Jessica from A Great Read and Kelly from This Wacky Momma Reads – sorry we didn’t get to hang out more!
Day 2: Fandom Frenzy
The best thing about the Fandom Frenzy day (for me) was the fact that I got to sit at Josephine Angelini’s table. My son would have preferred Dashner’s table, of course, but it was already filled, (along with Leigh Bardugo’s), even though we got there pretty early. That was okay with me, though. I absolutely adored Trial By Fire and was waiting to buy Firewalker at this conference. I’d say Angelini was the author I was most looking forward to meeting, so I was excited to see that there were spots at her table. And I’m happy to say that meeting her lived up to my expectations – she was fun and gracious and eager to chat with us about her books and her writing.
Here are a few things I learned about Josephine:
- She’s moving in a few weeks and their biggest challenge is disassembling and moving her wall-to-wall bookcase.
- She wanted to name the Worldwalker books Crucible, Cauldron and Pyre, but the publishing people weren’t fans. The third book is now going to be called Witch’s Pyre (it was previously going to be called Traitor’s Pyre), but the title change isn’t due to any story changes.
- When she submitted the trilogy to the publisher, she had a first book, a solid outline for the second book and a sentence about third basically saying that good stuff would happen. 🙂
A few other interesting details about the day:
- Morgan Rhodes said that the reason they redesigned the cover for A Book of Spirits and Thieves (changed from the ARC) is because Barnes and Noble wanted it to match the covers for the Falling Kingdoms series more. She thinks the new cover is pretty and all, but the main character (Crys) doesn’t ride a horse in the book!
- Carrie Ryan’s fondest wish would be to get a group of YA authors together and get them cameos in the Forest of Hands and Teeth movie as zombies! (Come on, movie producers – you know you want to let her do it!)
- As I already mentioned yesterday, James Dashner is awesome with his young fans – he made my kid feel special, and now Jade is super excited to read Dashner’s other books. She’s already finished reading The Eye of Minds and almost done with The Rule of Thoughts, and she’s been loving them. She’s been talking about them constantly and told me she’s going to write me a fifty page review for all of Dashner’s books. 🙂
- Leila Sales pronounces her name “Lila” – never would have guessed that!
The Books
Most of these I bought at the conference, but a few are copies I already had that I just got signed there. I also got all the Dashner books signed for my son – you can see a pic of those in yesterday’s post. Yay for signed books!!
Follow the Rafflecopter instructions below to win a signed hardcover of Firewalker by Josephine Angelini!! (Sorry, but this giveaway is long over, of course.)
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