*Libba Bray opening up the Book Festival*
Sorry, we're a little behind on posting the fun adventures we had attending the book festival.
Chairman Meow and I had a chance to go to the Austin Teen Book Festival located at Westlake High School. Libba Bray was the key note speaker, advertising her new book 'Going Bovine'. It all started with a garden gnome, the Book People publicist, who was dressed up as Balder, the God-gnome from the book. Libba delivered a hilariously heartwarming and highly accessible speech that spoke to the high schoolers and reminded us older folk of what we gladly left behind.
After that, we broke into panels, Jennifer and I went (or should I say ran) to the Fantasy panel featuring Rick Yancey, Lisa McMann Justine Larbalestier and Libba Bray (L-R, as seen in panel picture). As our past experience with author panels, these four were hysterical as well. They played off each other and gave interesting and highly entertaining answers ranging from what cookies they would give their characters to the numbers of times they were rejected before getting published (20 years for two of them!)
Afterwards we snuck our way up to Lisa McMann and Libba Bray. Lisa was totally cool and really excited to meet us! We were very excited to meet her. I was so excited to talk to her about Gone, which I had received the day before. I was even more excited when she told me I was the first one to give her a review of Gone. Please note, it was very vague as people were around and we couldn't talk in detail about it. It was still exciting. She signed some stuff for giveaways on Mundies! She was even cool enough to take pictures with us!! Libba Bray was really excited to meet us and gave us her contact info so we could set her up on Mundies! (We need that little hyper smile over here...). She wanted to know if we could be the Gemma Moms for her and of course we said yes.
We're looking forward to next year and thank you Lisa and Libba for taking the time to talk to us!!
Chairman Meow aka Jennifer and Lisa McMann
and Katieb with Lisa McMann
Rick, Lisa, Justine and Libba
I honestly don't think we've laughed so much before. This panel was hilarious. Libba had all of us laughing till our sides hurt when she opened the festival. Thank you to The Book People and everyone who put together this free festival!