Recap: PENGUIN TEEN ON TOUR!

On March 28th, I went to the Penguin Teen on Tour event in Brampton, Ontario where I saw the panel of authors discuss their new releases and generally their writing habits. On this tour was Allison Goodman, Sabaa Tahir, Rachel Hawkins, April Genevieve Tulchoke, and debut author, Alwyn Hamilton. It was so great to meet all these amazing authors in person! Also be sure to continue down to the bottom because I have a giveaway for you guys!

Out of all the events I have been to this was one of the most informative in terms of writing habits and the process behind author's books.

I was really there for Alwyn Hamilton, author of REBEL OF THE SANDS. Alwyn discussed how she wanted to write about a girl who had the superior skills to a man in something that is typically seen as a "man's thing" that wasn't so much about strength, thus sharpshooting. She also discussed how she researched her novel where she took some folklore from the Arabian Peninsulas to shape her story because that is how the "common" folk would live rather than reading history text which would be how the high class citizens lived. She, like Sabaa, liked that she didn't have to stick too much to what she found because if something didn't quite work, she could change it a bit; however, she said she was careful to make sure the stories she used were still able to be seen and recognized as those stories because she didn't want to appropriate them as her own.

Rachel Hawkins, author of LADY REGENADES, discussed how instead of writer's block, Allison Goodman liked to call it writer's pause, and Rachel thought there were two kinds: one where you just don't want to do it because you are being lazy or the scene is one that you can't write just yet. She suggests taking a break or writing a scene you are really excited to write to get back into the swing of writing. The other kind of writers' pause is where you grind to a halt; this one is typically because you have taken a wrong turn in your story and you know you aren't in the right spot for where your story should be.

April Genevieve Tulchoke told everyone that she would want to bring Wink out of her novel WINK POPPY MIDNIGHT to be her friend and she would keep all her characters in her own book instead of transporting them to another novel. All the other authors agreed this would be a good idea. To write WINK POPPY MIDNIGHT, April read a lot of fairytales and made some up herself. She also based Wink's mother on a real life person!

Allison Goodman discussed how she was always obsessed with the regency era and did a lot of research on 1812 specifically for her novel THE DARK DAYS CLUB. She said that the majority of the events occured in the past, but if she had to change something, she made a note of it in her author's note. If she could bring any of her characters to real life, her knee-jerk reaction is Lord Charlston, since she imagined Henry Cavill to be his physical character, but she would actually bring out Lady Helen's handmaiden!

Sabaa Tahir discussed how she was told by her parents that she would be a doctor when she grew up, but when she told them she found a practical career path that she wanted to take, Journalism, that they seemed to be okay with this. She knew that they approved of her career path as a writer when she overhead her mom bragging to one of her friends that Sabaa was writing a novel. The inspiration behind AN EMBER IN THE ASHES came from real news events that she had read about where men would be taken from their homes and the people left behind were not given an explanation or a really shady one but couldn't do anything about it. From this she thought about what she would do in this situation if her brothers were taken under these circumstances and thus the idea was created.

All the authors were super nice and really lovely. It was great to be able to see Alice, Sarah, Bruno, Christine, Liran, and Patty! The staff of Indigo were great and I really appreciate that they let us get all our books signed and take pictures with the authors! Thank you as well to Penguin Teen for putting this together and bringing this tour to Canada! It is always so great when we Canadians can attend these events!

I picked up a couple extra things to give away! Three prizes = three people! This one lasts a full month so you have plenty of time to get your entries in. Good luck!
a Rafflecopter giveaway