Celebrate the Book Event!!

This past weekend I attended a small book event in my area called Celebrate the Book! This event was a small gathering of all things book from the Carlisle area. This community event has been going on for several years and features speakers, authors, publishers as well as local independent book stores.

http://www.celebratethebook.org/index.php

Zoraida Cordova and Jennifer Armentrout
at the "Balancing Act" YA panel in Carlisle, PA.

I heard about this from Jennifer Armentout's blog and a packet of information we received at my work about local events. Luckily my best friend is a very good sport about my obsession with all things book related and agreed to travel over an hour with me to watch a YA panel. Sadly I could only stay for one panel and a book signing, but I thought it was well worth the drive.

Honestly I wasn't sure what to expect when I headed into this event. We also got lost on the way there so there was plenty of uncertainty and adventure along the way. Even so, I really enjoyed myself and met some wonderful authors of books that I've adored or admired from afar. I would definitely recommend looking into local events if you can find ones like this. I was able to purchase books from independent book sellers that I wasn't aware of which was really cool as well!



We went to the panel "Balancing Act" which was about how authors manage what they want to write, what fans want to read and what publishers want authors to write. It was super interesting and covered a lot of topics including how authors decided what to keep in and throw out of a book. There was also a tangent about readers wanting everyone to live and who we, as readers, become attached to. Very interesting stuff.

I ended up getting my copy of Obsidian signed as well as my copy of the Vicious Deep. Then I purchased a copy of Sweet Evil by Wendy Higgins and got that signed as well. The event was low key (I don't know if there were 100 adults in the building), but that also made it more interesting.

Thanks to everyone who put this event on because I had a lot of fun here and I hope I can go next year as well!!