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Last Thursday Waterstones in Edinburgh hosted an event with VE Schwab, Christina Henry, and Sarah Maria Griffin.
Now, VE Schwab has been one of my favourite authors for quite a while - I've pretty much devoured anything of hers I can get my hands on - so as soon as she tweeted about the event I snagged myself a ticket. Since then, I've been impatiently waiting for August 2nd to roll around, and I was very excited when it did.
In the meantime, I made a point to explore Griffin and Henry's work, as neither was an author I had read before, and I was pleased to find that I also enjoyed their novels.
All three authors answered questions from Schwab and Henry's representative before moving on to audience questions, and each of them was interesting to listen to but for different reasons. Sarah Maria Griffin is relatively new to the book scene, Spare and Found Parts is her first published novel, and she was very passionate in the way she spoke about everything, but particularly her experience of the internet, her love of The Legend of Zelda, and the recent women's rights vote in Ireland. In comparison, Christina Henry was much more soft-spoken in describing her books, experiences as a woman, and the things which inspire her to write. Victoria Schwab was very direct in her answers, and spoke honestly about her experiences as an author and the reactionary inspiration of her writing, she stated that all her books have come from a place of indignation - at the absence of LGBT representation in the fantasy genre, at the evolving gun culture in America, at the stereotypical trope of the 'bad-boy' love interest. I especially loved her description of Vicious as a challenge to herself to write a book with no good characters, and see if she could still make one of them likeable.
I found all three women to be honest, upfront, and likeable, and I was delighted to be able to participate in an event where the fans were obviously thrilled to be there to meet authors whom they admire and enjoy.
My favourite moments of the evening were definitely once we moved on to the signing portion however, all three authors were excited to get to chat to their fans, and seemed in no rush to hurry people away. They were happy to sign copies of books bought in the store and brought from home, and didn't mind how many there were. I had quite a few books by VE Schwab which I was hoping to have signed, and when I apologised for this she said "Never apologise for owning a lot of an author's books!"; I also mentioned that I had ordered the new Limited Edition VE Illumicrate, and she informed me that she's seen everything which is going into it and it's all amazing, so I'm now even more excited to receive that!
I was especially pleased to have taken along my copy of Black Wings by Christina Henry, because she was surprised and thrilled to see a copy and sign it. We shared a happy exchange on how Beezle is amazing, and she admitted that he's basically her avatar in the books - who doesn't love a sarcastic, pizza loving Gargoyle!
I primarily read books on my Kindle these days as we ran out of shelf space in our small flat long ago - roll on next year when we'll hopefully be able to buy a house and I will install so many shelves - however, I did make a point of buying physical copies of my favourite books from each author so I could get them signed; what can I say? I'm a sucker for a signed edition.
All in all, it was a great evening. Thanks to the Princes Street Waterstones in Edinburgh for hosting such a fantastic event, and I can't wait for the next time I get to attend one!
ABBG x