Last week, Alethea and I along with our friend Kate hightailed it downtown after work to catch the Reading with Popcorn and YA Writers event at The Last Bookstore in downtown Los Angeles. If you've never been, The Last Bookstore is a great little store in a really cool building that is part book store and part gallery. It's mostly books but there are art installations throughout the store. Anyway, we made it there in record time and only missed Cecil Castellucci's talk (sorry, Cecil! next time, we'll try harder to beat the traffic).
It was an interesting event. The authors showed a trailer from a couple of movies that were relevant to their books first. Then they spoke a bit about the books and read an excerpt. Then they showed a longer clip from each film. All of the authors were great fun and the clips were great. My favorites were from Rear Window and Dick. Check out our pics of the event below.
These were some really cool book title posters that the store was selling. They're so clever and simple. From top left to right you have, Pinocchio, The Three Little Pigs, Rapunzel, Hansel & Gretel, Goldilocks and the Three Bears and Mary Poppins.
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| fave of this set it little red riding hood on top right |
Crickett Rumley spoke about her book, Never Sit Down In A Hoop Skirt. Crickett is super funny and had the cutest southern accent. She said that her book was inspired by a true event involving her friend and a society similar to the one in her book.
Carol Tanzman reads from her book dancergirl. I think she showed my favorite clips. Carol's a very animated speaker and uses her hands a lot. :)
Janet Tashjian with her son Jake (who illustrated her book) talks about My Life As A Stunt Boy. Jake held up illustrations to emphasize what Janet's point. Hearing her talk about Parkour made me think of The Office episode with Parkour in it. See YouTube clip.
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| a pretty good crowd for this event |
Pic of all of the authors answering questions at the end. There's Cecil making an appearance. There were a lot of questions about how the authors got started and what other kinds of books they had written. They talked about the YA genre a bit as well. All in all, a very interesting and fun panel.
Also in attendance was author Ann Stampler, whose website Alethea just redesigned. We also ran into the lovely Sophia from Sophia The Writer. Sophia is super fun and I am hoping to see her again soon and meet her dog, Terry (hint, hint).
That's it for our brief recap. If anyone was there at the event and wants to add anything, please do in the comments. Thanks for stopping by!
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| say "twee!" |
You can find the Popcorn and YA writers at
Find Ann at annstampler.com/@annstampler, Sophia at sophiathewriter.blogspot.com/@sophthewriter and Thuy at rnslnitelite.blogspot.com/@fishgirl182
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