Event Recap: Victoria Aveyard and Sophie Jordan's St. Louis Signing

As I have mentioned a hundred times since I heard about it some number of weeks ago, I went to the Victoria Aveyard and Sophie Jordan book signing event in St. Louis last week. I met Sophie Jordan and Victoria Aveyard! EEEEKKKK!!!

Okay, now that that’s out of the way, let’s discuss how things went down.

First of all, I drove myself to this event. I know. You’re probably thinking to yourself, “Big deal. She’s twenty-some-odd-years-young. She can drive herself.” And yes, you would be right. However, I drove 3.5 hours to St. Louis and 3.5 hours home when I was done getting my books signed at 8:20 p.m. In case you’re like me and math isn’t your strong suit, that’s SEVEN HOURS of driving. As I’m looking back at my lack of pictures, I think I can tell I was tired and slightly less ecstatic than I should have been. Oh well…

Anywho, I got to the signing early because this was my first time driving in St. Louis and I wanted to avoid the rush-hour traffic. I failed to check the weather for St. Louis beforehand though, so when it started snowing, I was very unprepared. Thankfully it was only flurries and nothing was really sticking. Oh, and Sophie Jordan, who is from Texas, was very excited about the snow. Victoria lives on the east coast and wasn’t too terribly worried about the minor flurries.

Now that my whole spiel about driving and the snow is over with, Imma actually talk about what went down at the signing. The owner (I believe) of the independent bookstore that was hosting the event with the library held a Q&A with the authors. I’ve separated the questions and answers (as much as I remember of them anyway) below. Also note that these answers and questions have been summarized because I was taking notes on my phone. It’s not all word-for-word.

Q: How do you keep yourself on track when writing?

A (Sophie): It’s like being married to my husband. I can’t pick up and leave because a new hot guy comes around. It’s just like a new book idea. I have to dedicate myself to just one.

A (Victoria): I put my back against the wall after taking out college loans and needing to pay them off, so I decided to write a book.

Q: How/when did you start writing?

A (Aveyard): I played Legend of Zelda with my brother when I was younger and I was fascinated by the maps in the how-to manuals, so I’d make my own fantasy maps with terrible stories to go along with them. They were written in crayon. I was probably six or seven.

A (Sophie): I wrote fanfiction before it was really called fanfiction, like 90210 or Sweet Valley High fanfiction.

Q: Do you guys know the endings of your books before you write or does it just come to you?

A (Victoria): While I don’t know exactly how Mare’s story ends, I do know the last line and I knew I wasn’t going to reach that line with only three books in the series, so Harper agreed to expand the series to four books. They even asked if I could do five.

A (Sophie): I didn’t even know who Jacinda was going to end up with in the Firelight trilogy.

Q: Do you prefer writing romance or action?

A (Sophie): I prefer relationships, if the relationship isn’t there, I can’t write the action. I do like action though.

A (Victoria): Fights before romance. It’s hard to write a kiss.

Q: Is it difficult to write in certain POVs?

A (Sophie): Two POVs is difficult to write. My friend read Reign of Shadows and she said both characters sounded the same, so I had to change some things.

A (Victoria): We may get another POV in the third book. (Gasps in the audience.) I understood Mare’s voice, but it was hard to write as if Mare didn’t know what was going on in other characters’ heads when I actually did know.

Q: Why do you write fantasy?

A (Victoria): I like historical fiction, but writing it involves too much research, so I can create my own huge world instead.

A (Sophie): I love medieval stories.

Q: What books have you read that you’d recommend?

A (Victoria): Passenger by Alexandra Bracken, A Court of Thrones and Roses by Sarah J. Maas, The Wrath and the Dawn sequel

A (Sophie): I want to read JLA’s The Problem with Forever, but I love all of Katie McGarry’s books.

Q: What are you guys doing/writing next?

A (Victoria): I’ve got the screenplay itch.

A (Sophie): Not the YA thriller I’ve had on the backburner. I’ve been thinking about a two-book YA companion series. (Contemporary?)

Question from the audience:

Q: Any news about your movie?

A (Victoria): Elizabeth Banks, the director signed on for it, is awesome. She knows the YA world and fans because of The Hunger Games.

A (Sophie): Firelight is set to get its own film, and an actress, who I can’t name, has signed on.

***

There were a few other questions I didn’t write down, but I think this info is pretty satisfactory. Especially the news that there’s going to be another POV in book three!

After the Q&A, I lined up for the signing. I was in Group 1 because I’d gotten there so early, so I managed to be eighth or so in line. When I got up to Victoria, I made a joke about getting to her before her hand cramped up and she said that this was nothing, she’d signed 25,000 copies of Glass Sword. 

I then took a picture with both authors (it’s a little blurry, but I’m going to try to clean it up with Photoshop). 

When I slid my books over to Sophie, things got a little backed up because I’d brought all six of her YA books to get signed. And Sophie doodled in Reign of Shadows and put taglines in different colored ink on each book. So awesome! Victoria even made a joke that it took Sophie forever because she wrote a whole sentence when signing a book.

Oh, and before I forget, I met a fellow booklover at the event. Her name’s Carole and she has a blog. You should check it out. We talked about future St. Louis signings and she even gave me some Edelweiss pointers. Thanks, Carole!

All in all, it was a fun event. Both authors were pretty funny and I’m glad I get to add them to the ever-growing list of authors I’ve met. I just wish I didn’t have to drive so far to meet them all. *sigh*

Of course, that doesn't mean I'll stop going. Especially since there's another signing in March. ;)