February 11 - Marissa Meyer Book Event

It's been a while since I had a book event to write up a post for (but that's not my fault now, is it??). Finally, there's one to break up all the IMM's and reviews I've posted since then. And you'll have to deal with no pictures because all the ones I took turned out blurry. *sigh*

It seems to me that Canadian stops on book tours often include Toronto (it's where a lot of publishers have their Canadian offices), but sometimes tours send authors to Vancouver. This time, Marissa Meyer, author of the sci-fi Cinderella re-telling Cinder, headed up to Vancouver, which isn't that far from where she lives in Washington state and isn't far from Raincoast Books, the distributor in Canada for publishers like Macmillan.

And Raincoast was awesome in setting up some fun events before the signing.

On Friday, there was a lunch arranged by Raincoast (thanks to Crystal, Raincoast's Kids & YA publicist) so some local bloggers and other book-related people (one of the Vancouver Public Library kids' librarians was there, as were a couple of booksellers from Chapters) could meet with Marissa and talk about the book. I went (of course), and Caitlin did as well. It was nice to meet Marissa, and Crystal (always nice to meet people in person that I've met online), and Mariam, an actual teen book blogger. :) And everyone at the lunch was given a copy of Cinder that Marissa was happy to sign (which was so nice and something I didn't expect).

Later that afternoon was an online chat for Canadian bloggers to listen to Marissa read from Cinder and answer questions. It looked like the chat had a lot of Ontario bloggers in it, which was awesome (there was talk of trying to plan a Toronto stop next January when Scarlet comes out). I stalked the chat, I didn't ask any questions, but the ones that Marissa answered shed some light on what's to come in the next three books.

• The fairy tales the next books touch on are Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and Snow White.
• The red shoe on Cinder's cover was publisher idea, they thought the colour would pop and draw in readers.
• All books will have parts with Cinder's point of view. Book 2 is about 60% Scarlet and 40% Cinder.
• The hardest scene to write in Cinder was a scene with Peony (if you've read the book, Marissa says you should know which scene).
• Book 2 is about Scarlet, a girl in France who's grandmother disappears and a local street fighter named Wolf helps her out but she's not sure what his motives are.
• Book 3 is the Rapunzel fairy tale. Apparently, rapunzel is a type of lettuce (look up corn salad), as is watercress, and that's where Marissa got the idea for Cress.
• I don't remember which book, but there will be a sexy spaceship captain named Thorne, because Marissa says every sci-fi needs a sexy spaceship captain. ;)

Then came the signing on Saturday, which had a great turnout. Crystal said after that the total was 126 people, which was awesome. :) Marissa talked about the book, when she got the idea, when she started writing it, read a short passage, answered some audience questions (pretty much the same as the online chat questions), then sat down to sign a bunch of copies of Cinder. I'd already gotten by copy at the lunch, but I was also there to get a copy for Audrey since she's off in Toronto. I also saw Alita and Jenny, saw Mariam again, and met Sarika and Natalie. :)

I love that all this happened for Marissa. Cinder is her first book, there's another three coming, and the Canadian response has been so positive. I hope she comes back up here on tour for the rest of her series, and I hope the next books are just as enchanting as Cinder was.