Friday, October 11, 2013

Storyteller's Journey

  Inspired at Wordstock

Last Saturday I attended Wordstock in Portland, Oregon, and had an awesome time. If you live in the Pacific Northwest and have never attended the annual event, you really should check it out. (You might even see Star Wars characters like I did!)
Since it had been three years since I last attended the literary festival I noticed numerous changes. Due to the explosion of independent presses and digital publishing, there were many booths at the book fair offering information on those subjects.
However, what my critique partner and I hoped to do was to hear, and possibly meet, our favorite middle grade and young adult authors present at the four-day event. We were not disappointed!

This panel of authors is the big reason Kriston and I had such an awesome time at the event. Seated L-R: Emma Trevayne, Claire Legrand, and Stefan Bachmann. (We were told that the potted plant was there to represent the children's book author, Katherine Catmull who was unable to attend. I'm thinking they didn't want to admit that she's a shape-shifter!)

This talented company of children's book authors has also collaborated: Next year, Creepy Tales from the Cabinet of Curiosities will be released. It is a collection of dark short stories contributed by each of the four authors - whom you can tell are friends.

On a side note, my critique partner - Kriston, and I later had a chance to chat with the three authors and have them sign their books. Each of them was warm and friendly, and even asked about our own stories.
Thank you so much, Emma, Claire, and Stefan!

This quirky quartet (I say quirky because Katherine Catmull has a scarf wrapped around her pot, and is wearing a pair of sunglasses!) can be found at their website: Cabinet of Curiosities