Event Re-cap: YA IN BLOOM

This past Saturday was the first ever YA IN BLOOM event at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena, CA. My cousin and I decided on making the trip which was about an 1 ½ drive, not too bad considering it was the Gold Cup final; Mexico vs. US (in Pasadena as well).

Upon arriving we were given a swag bag (it was orange! *squee* My favorite color!) filled with goodies, swag and 2 books. Upon taking our seats I happened to run into Tessa, From The Bookshelf of T.B. I was so excited to finally get to meet her. She has been one of my blogging buddies from the very beginning. I am still utterly amazed at the fact that she is only a freshman in High School. This girl can WRITE! She is also very dedicated… I don’t think I would have been able to run a blog at such a young age.

Tessa and I! Isn't she cute?!

Tessa and I were comparing books from our goodie bag when we happened to meet yet another great blogger, Lauren over at 365 Days of Reading. Both these girls are adorable and super young! (I felt so OLD!) And can I just mention how awesome Lauren is?! One of the books she received in her goodie bag was TRAIL BY FIRE by Jennifer Lynn Barnes. Since she already had a copy at home, she gave me her extra copy… yeah, she’s THAT awesome! Thanks so much again, Lauren :)

We all decided to sit together up front and gave our undivided attention to our wonderful hosts Alyson and Alethea. These lovely ladies are too cool for words. YA IN BLOOM was an idea they started about a year ago and after working their butts off to have various authors’ present, books to giveaway; including 2 booster boxes that were worth over $500… I think it’s safe to say that YA IN BLOOM was a success! The event had approx 100 people present at the event; writers, author, bloggers, book lovers, etc. They also provided a delicious lunch :)

The Vroman’s staff was also super friendly and helpful. I don’t think they could have picked a better bookstore to host the event. They gave us a 20% discount coupon too! After a ton of giveaways, author Q&A and an enthusiastic YA presentation on book selling, it was time for the author signing. There were some pretty awesome authors present; 

Cindy Pon (Silver Phoenix)
Lisa Yee (Absolutely Maybe)

Katie Alender (Bad Girls Don’t Die)
Gretchen McNeil (Possess) 

Nancy Holder (Wicked) 

Jessica Brody (My Life Undecided) 

Andrew Smith (The Marbury Lens)

 

I was very excited to finally meet Cindy Pon. She was so nice and fashionable, definitely felt under dressed when I was standing next to her. After getting my books signed, I made my way over to the desert table, I grabbed myself a slice of the most delicious Lemon pie I have EVER tasted! Seriously, my taste buds were in heaven! A special shout out to Lizette Hernandez, the genius behind these creations.

Well my friends, that concludes my event re-cap. Thanks once again to everyone who helped organize this event. Also, make sure and check out the website Bridge to Books, for more info and future events.

My cousin w/Jessica Brody

Finally got to meet Ms. Nancy!

Alyson, YA IN BLOOM host. Check out her blog: http://www.kidlitfrenzy.com/

Alethea, other YA IN BLOOM host :) check out her blog http://www.readnowsleeplater.com/

Romantic Times Book Convention

RT Teen Day <3 April 9, 2011

Melissa de la Cruz; LOVE her BB series!

Richelle Mead signing my copies of Vampire Academy

This past Saturday was the Annual RT Book Convention in Los Angeles. After the book fair and the book signings RT was hosting a new event; Teen Day. There were many activities going on, some at the same time, so you had to choose where you wanted to go. My cousin and I attended-

Author Speed-dating: During this event all authors would sit at a table and had 5 mins to talk to us about anything they wanted (book related or not), answer questions, take pictures or hand out swag. At our table, we got to meet SO many awesome authors;

Simone Elkeles (Perfect Chemistry)

Ally Carter (Heist Society)

Richelle Mead (Vampire Academy)

Kimberly Derting (The Body Finder)

Kami Garcia (Caster Chronicles)

Margaret Stohl (Caster Chronicles)

Jeri Smith-Ready (Shade)

Michele Jaffe (Rosebush)

Sophie Jordan (Firelight)

Rachel Vincent (Soul Screamers)

Kelley Armstrong (The Gathering)

Carrie Ryan (The Forest of Hands and Teeth)

Alyson Noel (The Immortals)

Clare B. Dunkle (The House of Dead Maids)

Jennifer Lynn Barnes (Raised by Wolves)

Jackie Morse Kessler (Hunger and Rage)

Colleen Houck (Tiger's Quest)

Kelley Armstrong

I had SO much fun getting to know all these authors on a more personal level, even if we only had 5 minuets to chat. I was so scared to meet Simone Elkeles, but she is so nice and hilarious! We talked about Alex Rodriguez, the extremely hot guy that plays Alex Fuentes in her book trailers.... That boy is steaming hott! Michele Jaffe is probably one of the most fashionable authors I have ever met (picture below). She had on the cutest pink boots and pink tights. Rachel Vincent seemed very shy at first but then slowly opened up. Jennifer Lynn was just plain out awesome. We spent the majority of the time comparing humans to monkeys :)haha! It was a BLAST!

Kami Garcia, Rachel Vincent and myself

Author Speed-Reading: After Speed-Dating came Speed-Reading. This was a panel of YA authors that read short excerpts in timed readings. Some of these excerpts came from newly released books, others from ARC's. YA Panel;

Cassandra Clare (The Mortal Instruments)

Holly Black (White Cat)

Ann Aguirre (Enclave)

Carrie Ryan (Forest of Hands and Teeth)

Rosemary Clement-Moore (Texas Gothic)

Jennifer Lynn Barnes (Raised by Wolves)

Kristi Cook (Haven)

Kimberly Derting (The Body Finder)

Sarah Rees Brennan (Demon's Lexicon)

Alyxandra Harvey (Drake Chronicals)

Cassie Clare; I told her to give me an author pose :)

Cassandra Clare read from her new TMI book; CoFA, Jennifer Barnes read from her ARC of Trial by Fire (book #2 in the Raised by Wolves trilogy). This is totally random but during this panel I develpoed a small girl crush on Sarah Rees Brennan. She is super nice, witty, not to mention super smart! She read a bit from Demon's Lexicon and as soon as we left the event, I bought myself a copy :)

Teen Party:

After these two events came the RT Tenn Party which was pretty much a mix and mingle with all the YA authors who were present. Upon entering the vent, each person was given a "Teen swag bag" that was filled with books and goodies. I did a quick video to summarize this part of the evening;

I forgot to mention that besides Farrah, I also met some new bloggers, one of them came all the way from New York! I couldn't believe it!... I'm talking about you Haysel :) Check out our blog; The Tattered Page. And that's ittt!! Like I said, overall I believe RT Book convention was a success! Thanks so much for stopping by! Here are a couple author photos, enjoy :)

The lovely Farrah from ieatwords.net

Tera Lynn Childs

Michele Jaffe and her cute outfit :)

CC Hunter- Born at Mightnight

Aly Carter

Colleen Houck and my cousin

Rachel Caine; can't believe I waited this long to read Morganville Vampires

Kimberly Derting

Melissa Marr

Holly Black

PS. Make sure and stop by next week for a giveaway :) In my Teen bag, I received a couple of books which I already own so I'll be giving them away! Happy Friday and I hope you all have a GREAT weekend!

RT Book Lovers Convention

So basically I just registered for Teen Day for this year's Book Lovers Convention. Ya'll have no idea how excited I am :) Can't wait til April 9th! There are so many registered authors, I don't think I'm going to have time to meet them all! (I know that sounds super show-offy... Forgive me, can you tell I'm excited?)

Anyone else planning on going, or have already registered? Let me know! I would LOVE to be able to meet up with other bloggers. The blogging community is one of the main reasons I blog. Everyone I've ever interacted with have been nothing but nice and helpful! Everyone's always willing to lend a hand or help out... its amazing!

Click here to check out my profile. There you will be able to see my Convention schedule and what workshops I'll be attending. This will be my 2nd author(s) event! I was lucky enough to have the Smart Chicks Tour 2010 stop by close to home last year. I had SO MUCH FUN! Since then I promised myself I'd try and make as many bookevents possible!

Here's to my YA author stop #2....! Let me know if anyone else will be at this event!

Smart Chicks Kick It Tour

Who was there: Melissa Marr, Alyson Noel, Kelley Armstrong, Rachel Caine, Melissa de la Cruz, Rachel Vincent, Kami Garcia, Margaret Stohl & Mary Pearson

This past Monday the Smart Chicks Kick It tour came to a city near me (& I only had to drive out about an hour to get there.... hip hip hurray!). I had been waiting for this event since before summer! & it did not disappoint, the event was SO MUCH FUN!

This was my first author signing/meet & greet EVER! The event started off w/ARC giveaways. Melissa Marr, Rachel Caine & Rachel Vincent all gave out a copy of their newest title, but you had to answer some trivia first. Also, many new announcements- extended series, new series & movie info on some books! Happy to announce that Beautiful Creatures now has a Warner Brothers Script! Afterwards we did what the smart chicks call the lightning round. Lightning round which pretty much consisted of questions from the audience. Fav actor, band, book... One girl asked about "Who's your fav Twilight Character?" - Come on!! Really? We get to ask ANY question to some of the best YA authors around, & you wanna talk about twilight? idk. Maybe there was some deep meaning behind the question, but I didn't see it.

After that came "Marry, Shag, Cliff" a game where you decide what characters you'd marry, shag and who would you throw off a cliff. There was lots of screaming during the game because both authors and audience participated! There was lots of girls who wanted to marry Derek from Kelly Armstrong's Darkest Power series, but personally, when my turn came up, I happily ran up on stage to take my picks from Melissa de la Cruz's Blue Blood Series. I announced that I'd marry Oliver, shag both Jack & Kingsley at the same time, & I'd throw Mimi off a cliff! (lots of cheering...haha!)

Last, but not least, came the author signing. It was so exciting to get a chance to meet so many awesome authors all in one night. I was so excited to Meet Melissa de la Cruz, I am OBSESSED w/her Blue Bloods Series. I probably looked star-struck as I went up to her w/my 5 books in hand for her to sign. She's so Nice & funny! Love being her follower on twitter! I also got my Immortal books signed by Alyson Noel, along with a picture & Beautiful Creatures signed by both Margaret & Kami. During the signing I also got to chat w/Rachel Caine & I was dying to ask her for a picture or to autograph by bag, but I felt embarrassed because I didn't have any of her books w/me. Since I had heard there was a limit on books you could bring, I only brought so many ... but it was such a lie! I saw girls who carried 15+ books. I was so sad... *sigh* but this was my first author signing, so I guess you can say I'm learning how things work! Overall I had such a blast at the Smart Chicks stop in Pasadena (& I got my hands on lots of bracelet & keychains too). Thank you so much Smart Chicks for hosting such an awesome event & being so kind to your fellow readers!

Margaret and Kami- Beautiful Creatures

Alyson Noel- Evermore

Melissa de la Cruz- Blue Bloods!