Maggie Stiefvater at Once Upon a Time Recap + Giveaway (US – Ends 8/17)
Why hello again. :) I had the pleasure of going to the last stop on Maggie Stiefvater’s Sinner tour this week held at Once Upon a Time in Montrose, CA. I was really excited to see Maggie as I missed her on the last tour and she is one of my very favorite authors. I got to play volunteer and helped set up the presentation area and also got to hand out the post its for the book signing. It actually really made me appreciate booksellers even more because helping prep for the signing of this size was quite a task. Luckily things were pretty well organized and everyone was really patient. We all got in with plenty of time to see Maggie.
It was standing room only as Maggie made her way up to the stage to talk to all of us. If you have never seen Maggie in person before it’s kind of hard to explain why she’s so great live. There’s a lot of energy around her and she tends to jump on the furniture. In our case, we had a small ledge for window displays, which she promptly hopped onto.
Maggie started off by telling us that she never planned on re-visiting the world on Mercy Falls. In fact, if you look at the end of Forever, she actually says that it would be the last book in the series. However, when she was at the airport one day on tour, a line came into her head – “I was a werewolf in L.A.” She thought what a great first line in a book but she told herself that she was done with werewolves. But the line stayed with her and she decided to write it down just to see what it looked like. But, with Maggie, she says that once it was written down she knew that she would have to write the book.
Maggie said that she always wanted to write a band book. She was in a Celtic band in college and she described to us the various members of the band in great and hilarious detail. She also told us how she garnered the nickname Satan after firing a band member in a public and messy outburst. Even though Sinner isn’t technically a band book, she hopes that some of that band mentality will be felt in the book.
She told us that Sinner started in a city that she hated and then loved (Los Angeles) and also with a book that she hated and then loved (The Time Traveler’s Wife). Maggie said that she hated The Time Traveler’s Wife the first time she read it, but she had to finish it. But after she finished it, she read it again and loved it. Everything she hated about the book the first time around she loved when she read it again. And even though she knew how the book ends, she ugly cried when the read it (and she doesn’t normally cry at books and movies). After that, she decided that she also wanted to write a book that would ruin someone’s evening. Her deepest wish is that people will either love Sinner or hate it, nothing in between.
After her talk, Maggie opened it up to some questions. When asked about some insight into what future novels she has planned, Maggie said that she used to think that book ideas were best used right away so they didn’t “expire.” Now she realizes that ideas are actually best left to baste for a while before writing them. She has book ideas for the next 4 years but wouldn’t divulge much more.
On her writing style, Maggie says that she tends to do a lot of prep work in research and in her head before writing. When she does write, it tends to be all at once before a deadline.
She doesn’t know why the writing in Sinner is not orange to match the cover (like the other books in the Mercy Falls series).
When asked about how she names characters, Maggie said that she thinks really hard about names because we usually have an idea of what a person with a certain name looks or acts like. She says that uncommon names come without that baggage, which can be both good or bad. She also likes to see how names look on paper. Sam looks a lot like “sad.”
Someone asked if Maggie got a lot of flack for writing queer characters. Maggie says that she actually expected to get more flack for it than she does.
After questions, Maggie gave away the beautiful guitar she doodled on. Sadly I did not win, but Kimberly did win a really cool sketch from Maggie. Then we all proceeded to line up for the signing. Below is a pic of Maggie with her friends Brenna Yovanoff and Tessa Gratton. I know it’s not the most exciting pic but I kind of love Maggie’s expression in it.
I took a stalker pic of Maggie while she was signing my book and she said that it might not be considered stalking since she invited us to this event. That made me feel a little better about it. All in all, a really great signing. I wish Maggie came out more often but it makes it more special when she does since it’s infrequent. Had a great time hanging with my blogging buds Kimberly, Alethea and Aly. We also saw a bunch of our bookish friends so “hi!” to them as well.
Of course I didn’t forget about you guys. I had Maggie sign my ARC of Sinner for a giveaway. This is for US residents only (sorry international friends, but postage is a bitch right now). This giveaway ends on August 17, 2014. Just enter via the nifty Rafflecopter form. Good luck!
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