Who (pictured above from left to right):
Megan Shepherd, Jessica Spotswood, Stephanie Perkins, Victoria Schwab, Ellen Oh
Where: Bethesda Library, MD
When: Saturday, February 1st at 2pm

Five YA authors results in a packed room:

I was there mostly to see Stephanie Perkins, author of Lola and the Boy Next Door and Anna and the French Kiss. Perkins was on my “bucket list of authors to meet” and therefore, I was super excited!  I was also pleasantly surprised with the rest of the panel.  I was familiar with all of their books, even if I hadn’t read them.  And it is always nice to hear a variety of authors speak about their writing process.

If you’re looking for a creepy read, you may want to check out Victoria Schwab.  She was very fun to listen to and more of a veteran author than I realized.  I was only aware of her newer YA book The Archived, where the dead are stored like books on shelves, and the main character hunts down those dead that escape the library.  The premise is haunting and intriguing, and after hearing her speak, I’d trust her with my reading time if I feel like a thrills and chills kinda read.

The other author that I’m NO DOUBT CHECKING OUT is Megan Shepherd.

She is one cool chick and a lot like myself.  Shepherd is doing gothic/sci-fi retellings of classics.  So freaking cool.  I’d already bought her first book, The Madman’s Daughter, but never got around to reading it.  The Madman’s Daughter is based off of H.G. Wells The Island of Dr. Moreau and her next two books in the series will be based off of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Frankenstein.  She did not plan to write a trilogy, but at her editor’s suggestion, she developed this plan that incorporated other classics that were along the same “playing with science” vein.  I think that reading her books will be inspirational for my own writing, and I’m excited to check her books out!

And finally, there was the lovely Stephanie Perkins.  Upon meeting her, I’d planned to tell her that I loved how all of her characters (even the secondary ones) had their own interests and hobbies.  I found this made all her characters very endearing and lovable.  I was so pleasantly surprised when the topic of secondary characters came up in the panel discussion, and Perkins cited her inspiration for creating great secondary characters was J.K. Rowling!  I knew there was a reason I liked you Stephanie Perkins!  She talked about how she thinks it is so amazing that J.K. Rowling managed to create such a HUGE (thousands!) cast of secondary characters that are memorable in their own way.  Well, Stephanie Perkins, I believe you have successfully emulated J.K. Rowling because your secondary characters made your books stand out to me beyond the average contemporary fiction.  Kudos!

The only autograph I wanted was Perkins.  So I stood in line and had a short but lovely chat with her.  She has such a glowing, beautiful smile, as you can see in the pictures below!

Love the message to be yourself, and very “Lola” appropriate!
Overall a great author event  🙂