Literary Events >> Fierce Reads Tour

Yesterday was spectacular, as I attended the Fierce Reads Tour at Mysterious Galaxy Books in San Diego, CA, along with my fabulous friend Christina. I was super excited to be able to meet so many amazing authors and to pick up such a large stash of new beauties to add to my bookshelf! The authors who attended this event included Marissa Meyer (Cinder), Emmy Laybourne (Monument 14), Jessica Brody (My Life Undecided), Jennifer Bosworth (Struck), Leigh Bardugo (Shadow and Bone), and Anna Banks (Of Poseidon).

To kickstart the evening's festivities (you know, after Christina and I have picked up our Starbucks mochas), Kate Lied, a publicist for Macmillan Children's Publishing Group, showed us the above video, which includes the official Fierce Reads theme song performed by Jessica Drake. You can download the song for free from the Fierce Reads Facebook page, if you're interested! The author's took turns detailing the premise of their respective novels, and showed a short trailer to coincide with each book. The trailer for Struck was really quite impressive, it felt like a movie trailer! Emmy Laybourne, in addition to being an author, actress, screenwriter, and ghost writer for a prolific children's horror series, also happened to write the lyrics for the trailer song for her novel, Monument 14. Check it out when you get the chance!

Each of the authors discussed how they came up with the ideas for their novels. Leight Bardugo humorously explained that she came up with the flesh-eating monsters from her novel, Smoke and Bone, from a time she stayed at a friend's place and found herself terrified of a dark hallway and what it would be like if the shadows were an actual place. Jessica Brody came up with the premise for My Life Undecided while watching The Hills and realizing that the girl's on the show make the worst decisions, and wouldn't it be grand if we had the chance to vote on their choices like on American Idol? My personal favorite, and the one who deserves the honorary Cthulhu Award of Creative Creepyness and General Bizareness goes to Anna Banks, who revealed that the story of Of Poseidon came about due to the fact that everything else but mermaids had been taken, with the exception of Sasquatch, whom she believes the YA world was not yet ready for. I am well on my way to creating a Team Sasquatch button in honor of this idea!

Work it Marissa Meyer!

The floor was then opened to questions, one of which being how the authors feel about the pressure in the YA industry to write a series rather than a stand-alone novel. One of the responses from Marissa Meyer was that publishing companies put a lot of time and money into marketing and publishing franchises rather than a single product to guarantee the return of an audience time after time. Emmy Laybourne commented that she loves the chance to connect to readers on such an intimate level, and writing a series also provides both author and reader the chance to reconnect via something they both love, and of course she says she loves hugs! You can view Jessica Brody's response in the video below (sorry for the quietness and shakiness!). Another question asked, which fired up a heated debate between Jessica Brody and Leigh Bardugo, was how authors felt about self-publishing, to which Jennifer Bosworth replied "I can write sexy!" (in response to the sudden best-seller status of the self-published erotica, 50 Shades of Grey).

We ended the evening with the book signing, where I was able to get all of my books plus a poster signed, and I scored some swag as well, which will be featured in Saturday's Stacking the Shelf post! I hope to talk to these authors again someday, as this tour was so much fun, and I think I've made a biblio-convert of my friends! I am also really hoping I will get to see Marissa Meyer at Comic Con, who will be debuting a steampunk Red Riding Hood costume! How amazing is that? Until next time :)