Pitch Dark Days Event Recap- Milwaukee, May 8th, 2013

In April I was contacted by HarperTeen to be the official live blogger for the Dark Days of Summer event in Milwaukee, WI.  This was my first author event, so I had no idea how it would turn out and I was pretty nervous, but that quickly disappeared upon arrival.  Here's how my night went...

A pretty decent crowd showed up to meet the authors, which was awesome!  I even got to meet a few other bloggers, like Jaime & Erin from Fic Fare, Heidi from YA Bibliophile, Rachel from Rachel Reads, and Liza from WhoRuBlog.  I got settled in my seat and talked to a few Kiera Cass fans before the authors arrived, and when they did, the publicist took me to meet them and I began the interview.  

I also filmed it so all of you can watch!

When the event officially began, each of the authors introduced themselves and answered a few questions that Alison asked, before turning to me to ask a few questions that some of you guys threw at me!

Here are a few interesting facts-

• Kiera says that in high school, she was exactly the same, just with bigger hair.  While Elizabeth and Amy were painfully shy, Aprilynne was an overachiever.
• Elizabeth comes up with her character names by going through her friends list on Facebook!  Kiera chose America to be the name of her main character because her husband didn't like it for one of their children's names.
• Aprilynne explained that Kimberlee's voice came to her from the moment she began writing Life After Theft.  She told her "My name is Kimberlee with two Es and don't you forget it!"  Jeff's voice also came to her naturally, and she says that the story would have been completely different if he and Kimberlee swapped roles.
• Amy told us that her favorite and most rewarding part about being an author was writing the kissing scenes!  Kiera said that she wrote The Selection for herself and can hardly believe that other people love it as much as she does!

After the Q&A, we were able to get our books signed, and as if my night couldn't get any more awesome, my name was drawn for a free book!  I chose Spells by Aprilynne Pike, since the only book I have in that series is Wings, and got all 9 of my books signed by each of the authors.  I also picked up a bit of signed swag to give away!

Three winners will get a signed extra content booklet for Unbreakable and various swag, such as bookmarks, postcards, tattoos and stickers from each of the authors.  Giveaway is open internationally and will close on June 8th, 2013.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Overall, I have to say that my first author event turned out to be better than I expected.  Each of the authors were incredibly sweet and a pleasure to talk to...they even thanked me for all that I was doing for them...Whaaaa??  I still feel starstruck and I definitely can't wait to attend another author event!

A HUGE thanks to Harper Teen for contacting me to be the live blogger for the Milwaukee stop!  It was an honor.