October 4 - Tahereh Mafi in Seattle

Three weeks ago (the day I went downtown for the launch of The Night Circus, actually), I got an e-mail from HarperCollins inviting me and a friend to lunch in downtown Seattle with Tahereh Mafi as a pre-publication event for Shatter Me. At a loss for who to take (my sister wouldn't be interested, Ashelynn doesn't live nearby, my real life friends would've gone for free food), I mentioned it to Caitlin over at WhatchYAReading.net and she said she'd come. So we went, crossing the border and driving what Google claimed was 2 and a half hours but was more like 3 hours (because we stopped a couple of times) down to Seattle and a super posh Italian restaurant. Tahereh assured us it was a lunch for book bloggers, that other book bloggers would be there for us to talk to and gush about books with.

Honestly, I just wanted to meet her, maybe get a picture with her (I forgot, my bad, I'm a dork), maybe get her to sign my ARC (which she did), and listen to her talk. I'm a simple kind of girl. In July after a signing I had dinner at a table with Mindi Scott, Mandy Hubbard, and Gen Crewel and just listened to them talk about writing and publishing. I was happy enough to listen. :)

I feel bad because I don't have pictures and I have no notes. Most of this is because Tahereh wanted to get to know us. She said she wanted to talk to book bloggers because we go to signings and conventions and review and help market books for free. And it's all because we adore books and authors and world-building and characters and everything that make books awesome.

So we spent lunch talking about books we like and books we weren't huge fans of, why we started blogging in the first place. She thought we were awesome for driving down. I thought she was awesome for seeing us at lunch then meeting booksellers later in the evening with her editor.

I leave you with one picture, because honestly, after spending almost 6 hours in a car all sick and stuffed up and about ready to beat my head against something because the sinus pain was so bad, it made me smile.

Thank you, Tahereh. :)