Book Signings and Travels – Page 2

Meeting Carrie Hope Fletcher at the Cheltenham Literature festival!

October 12, 2015

We’re so lucky that we have an amazing literature festival that attracts so many famous faces so close to us. Cheltenham is a Small town about 20 minutes away from us and is famous for its various festivals and also the Cheltenham Races. We always make the most of the Literature Festival each year! This year Amy and I went to hear Youtuber, Author and Westend star, Carrie Hope Fletcher talk about her book All I Know Now which I reviewed and will link here. Carrie is a serious role model and idol to me so I was very excited and a little star struck to meet her…which you can probably tell from the pictures…

Firstly Carrie was interviewed in front of about 150-200 people (including us… we were right at the back but that didn’t matter…) She stuck me with her witty humor and I can only describe her as an old soul, she was just like a wise owl, but she’s only 23! The interview started with her reading an extract from her book about how she got chased by a bear, she managed to make us laugh and seriously think in the space of a minute which was very commendable, and also I totally had a freak out when she started singing (she honestly has the most amazing voice!) From her interview it is easy to see how she is the “big sister” of the internet with her fantastic advice and morals, I SO WISH SHE WAS MY BIG SISTER! I found myself nodding along and agreeing with everything she was saying, she kept saying she waffles but I couldn’t disagree more, I thought everything she said was cleverly crafted and well thought out, which is extremely impressive considering she thought up all her answers on the spot! She also talked about her new book On The Other Side which is a fiction book and sounds very interesting and I will definitely read and review when it is out!

There were also some quick fire questions which I tried to write down but I couldn’t quite catch all of them. Carrie’s fictional boyfriend would be Neville Longbottom and her favourite heroine would be Hermione Granger, both, of course, from Harry Potter, but she did specify that it was a very hard decision to make! Her favourite author is Andrew Kaufman, her favourite cake is coffee and walnut (controversial) and her favourite Youtube channel that hasn’t got lots of Subscribers is Good Mythical Morning. There were also some fab audience questions (I was going to ask one but I froze and couldn’t think of anything!) but the answers that were gained from the Q&A was that if you want to get into acting she does suggest going to drama school because it’s much easier to get an agent! A question that was asked was if she regrets not doing A Levels and her answer was she doesn’t regret it because she’s been able to do all she wanted without them but she wishes she was more educated and clever!

After the interview, Amy and I waited in a queue for 30 minutes to get our books signed by Carrie! It was so exciting (I was actually shaking!) and when we got to the front she so lovely asking how we were… I was a little star struck and acted like a deer in headlights, so at least Amy was speaking coherently! We had such a wonderful time and we would suggest anyone who lives close to Cheltenham to go because it’s absolutely fab!

I hope you enjoyed this different little post! We will hopefully go to more of these kinds of events in the future so do let us know if you want us to do this again!

I will leave my book review of Carrie’s book here

I will also leave a link to her youtube channel here because she’s honestly my favourite!

The Hay Festival – Meeting Sarah J Maas

May 24, 2015

It was this weekend when my co-blogger and I took a spontaneous trip to the ‘Hay Festival’ in Hay-On-Wye not only to experience the festival itself but to also meet one of my favourite authors, Sarah J Maas!!! For those who don’t know what the Hay festival is a literacy festival which celebrates great writing from poets, lyricists, comedians, novelists and the power of great ideas to transform our way of thinking. For 10 days in May, The Hay Festival is full of stories, ideas, laughter, and music.

For those interested the Hay Festival is running from 21st – 31st May 2015 and for more information check out the website here!

The Book Talk

For both of us, the talk was a great experience as we were able to not only find out more about her wonderful characters but her writing process and her journey to becoming an author. As expected she was such a lovely, down to earth person who made us laugh as well as inspiring us! I loved the fact she too was a fangirl like her readers and kept making ‘Lord of The Rings’ and ‘Jurassic Park’ references which too made me fangirl!

Sarah is such a passionate writer and her love for her books and characters are really inspiring! I loved hearing about her journey to becoming a writer and that numerous people had tried to discourage the idea of writing as a profession but she made it clear never to give up and just to block out the haters. To her, writing was a way with coping with difficult situations and something she turned to in times of need which I thought truly showed her love for writing! She said the best moment in her career was getting that call saying she was a New York Times Best Selling Author!!

The main topic of the book talk was her new release ‘A Court Of Thorns and Roses’ which I had not yet read but I loved finding out more about the characters. Learning more about the characters was really interesting and I can’t wait to start reading it!! She talked a lot about Feyre the protagonist and her characteristics and how she thought it was important for her to have the passion for art as well as being illiterate! She also made it clear how important it was for her to have a strong female protagonist which I too find very important!

Again she briefly talked about the sequel to ‘A Court Of Thorns and Roses’ and how it will be about the aftermath of the events in the first book! And you’ll also be pleased to hear that in the second book there are more gorgeous shirtless men!!

The thing I loved the most is the fact that she talks about her characters as if they are real and sitting in the audience next to her which I loved and showed she had as much passion for her characters as we as the readers do! I loved it!! We also talked about the Throne of Glass series and that she too cried when writing ‘Heir of Fire’ so much that it almost broke her! Authors aren’t as cruel as we thought!

Again I loved hearing about her writing process and when writing she tends to listen to films scores which I thought was fab as I do the same! However recently she said she had been listening to Kayne West when writing ‘Queen of Shadows’ to help get into the character of Celaena which is certainly very different!

Being able to meet one of my idols was absolutely amazing and an experience I certainly will never forget! I will treasure my signed copy of ‘A Court Of Thorns and Roses’ forever!! And to top my day off Sarah J Mass has just retweeted and replied to my tweet!! (I am currently fangirling!!)