Book Signing with Maggie Stiefvater!!!!!!

So a few weeks back I was complaining that authors never come to Minnesota.  Well lo and behold Maggie Stiefvater, author of Shiver, announces she is coming to Minnesota!!! I didn't care where she was going to appear, I would be there.  Turns out she was appearing at a Barnes and Noble not too far away. Dragging my sister along, I went to the signing on Saturday night. She was appearing with two other YA authors that are published by the same publishing company as Maggie, Flux Publishing.  We got there and got seated.  I was happy to see several young girls there, so I knew they would ask questions. 

The event started with each author sharing a little about themselvs and their writing process, and then they opened it up to questions.  Another author on the panel, Kristen Cronn-Mills, had a question for the group.  Her publisher wanted to know if teenagers had to have the main characters in a novel end up together or was it ok if they didn't.  A great discussion started - boiled down to NO as long as there was a good reason for them to be apart.

The Q and A was great.  I learned a lot about Maggie, her life and her writing process.  Here are a few things:

• she legally changed her name when she was 16 years old
• she was homeschool, so loves going to schools so she can steal characters for her books
• she takes great glee in putting her characters through difficult things.  She commented that when she learned Sam in Shiver couldn't look at bathtubs because of childhood trauma, she knew she'd force him into a bathtub at some point during the book!
• She almost had to change Sam's name in Shiver, but was able to leave it as is
• she wrote Shiver because she cried at The Time Traveler's Wife and wanted to make people cry
• after writing Shiver she had to write Ballad to counter act the sweetness of Shiver.  She said she had to burn someone at the stake!
• she is full of energy and had us all laughing several times.  I think if I spent the day with her, she'd wear me out! 

After the questions they all stayed to sign books. I had Maggie sign all three Shiver, Lament and Ballad.  I also bought the books by the other two authors, Margaret Willey and Kirsten Cronn-Mills because they both sounded great.  I'll be highlighting Kirsten Cronn-Mills at some point.  I read the first few pages of her book The Sky Always Hears Me and was hooked!

I'm so glad I went! And between you and me - I think my sister enjoyed it too!

And this last pic is to enter Maggie's incrediable give-away.  Go here to see what it is!