Thursday was a great day for Melanie and me. One of the books my YA Literature class read this semester was Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George, who just happens to be a friend and collegemate of my professor. Luckily enough, the university sprang enough moolah to bring Miss George to SUU!
My YA Literature class combined with the Advanced Fiction class for a special presentation by Jessica. She is hilarious! It was an hour and 20 minutes of good information on the processes of writing intertwined with her witty, and slightly sarcastic and sassy, remarks. My professor gave the OK to bring Melanie along with me, and she had a fantastic time hearing from Jessica.
Later that evening she gave a book reading and signing. It was just a lot of fun. She read from her upcoming book, Princess of Glass, which is a sequel to Princess of the Midnight Ball, both of which are a retelling of certain fairy tales. Do you want to know which one? Well, I'm not going to tell you. You'll have to read the books to find out. Anyway, that evening a couple of my friends who are in YA Literature with me, Melanie, and I were just hanging around and chatting with our professors and Miss George. She was packing up to leave and gave Melanie an advanced reader copy of her book - and it won't be on shelves until May! It's the copy that she/her editor/her agent/the publishing company (as you can tell, I'm not sure who sends it out) sends out to magazines and what not to review her book. Melanie was speechless! Actually she was very polite and smiled and said thank you. And then she couldn't stop talking about how nice it was of Jessica to give her that and how excited she was to read it. So I guess she wasn't speechless at all. She was speechful, but that doesn't have the same ring to it.
It was a really good experience for me. Slightly disheartening when Jessica showed us all her scrapbook of rejection letters. 188 known (she admitted to burning a few in the kitchen sink) rejection letters. And yes, they are in an actual scrapbook. Some of the letters sent back to her were so mean. But it is nice to know, that I don't have to be a master at English to be a writer. I just have to love what I'm writing.
I should have been a smart mom and taken a camera with me. Kicking myself as I type. No pictures for you, no pictures for Melanie. Oh, well.
8 comments:
I wish I would have known she was coming to town - I've LOVED her work. Glad you had a great time with her and your daughter.
What a wonderful experience for Melanie!!!
Your words are worth a thousand pictures.
Tasha - I'm so sorry I didn't tell you! Like I said on your blog, I'm a slacker and didn't even think about it.
Julie - It was great for me, but just as great, if not better, for Melanie. :)
Sarah - Thanks, but I still should have taken pictures! I would have loved to have captured Mel's face when she gave her the arc!
oH what an awesome experience!
Thanks so much for sharing that post! I loved reading it! You are having such a great adventure with your schooling!!!
That is some great mother/daughter fun! Good job! Glad you enjoyed it:)
how cool for Melanie! That was so nice of you to bring her along!
I don't deal well with rejection. Maybe thats why I haven't tried to write that children's book yet?
Ooooh! That sounds like such fun! Now I'm wishing I would have begged to be allowed in, too. :)
That's super fun that Melanie got to meet her, too. Loved the post!
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