Did you know that October is National Book Month? The state of Utah supports this by hosting the 15th Annual Utah Humanities Book Festival. The festival is running for five weeks, Sept. 22 - Oct. 31st. During the festival 120 free events are scheduled all around the state. Go to www.utahhumanities.org to check for events being held in your area. I was privileged to be able to attend one of the sponsored events last Saturday, Oct. 13th. I attended the "Libba Bray in Conversation with Shannon Hale" event held at The Viridian Event Center in West Jordan, UT.
Libba Bray is the New York Times bestselling author of the following books: A Great and Terrible Beauty, Rebel Angels, The Sweet and Far Thing, Going Bovine, Beauty Queens, and The Diviners (her latest release). She has contributed to several anthologies: 21 Proms, The Restless Dead: Ten Original Stories of the Supernatural, Up All Night, Vacations From Hell, Half-Minute Horrors, Eternal Kiss: 12 Vampire Tales of Blood and Desire, Geektastic: Stories From the Nerd Herd, The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume 6, Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories, and Zombies vs Unicorns. Libba lives in Brooklyn, NY.
As you can tell from this list, Libba is an accomplished and successful author (http://libbabray.com). Why is it that I haven't read any of her books yet? I just discovered her! I'm looking forward to reading some of her stories and seeing how her incredible personality drives her stories. From what Shannon Hale said, Libba has some stories that will not just scare me...they will really scare me! It's the perfect time of year for that, isn't it?
Shannon Hale is a local author who lives in South Jordan, UT. She is also a New York Times bestselling author. She wrote several books for young readers, the Newbery Honor book: Princess Academy, Palace of Stone (I'm currently reading this), The Goose Girl, Enna Burning, River Secrets, Forest Born, and Book of a Thousand Days. Shannon co-wrote two graphic novels with her husband, Dean Hale (he attended the event also): Rapunzel's Revenge and Calamity Jack. Shannon wrote three books for an adult audience: Austenland (being made into a movie), Midnight in Austenland (my favorite!), and The Author and the Housewife. Shannon is an effortless storyteller who is incredibly talented with improv comedy(www.squeetus.com).
These two ladies were hilarious! They were so entertaining and are gifted with off the cuff jokes, stories, and responses (I loved the tiaras!). It was an ad-lib presentation that was delightful to witness and they fed off each other seamlessly. Even my 14 year old daughter enjoyed their banter. I was so glad that I made the effort to attend. After an hour presentation the ladies did a Q & A time then had people line up for the book signing. It was a great afternoon and I laughed sooo hard!
Have you been to any of the Book Festival events? What did you think? Were you impressed also?
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