My fangirl moment (for the time being) and contests

This weekend was pretty busy in my area, the Antelope Valley Poppy Festival was this weekend AND, the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books was held in L.A.  I hadn't intended to attend until I 'met' author Robin Hobb on Goodreads and serendipitously discovered that she was going to be on a panel with Raymond Feist and Marie Brennan and they were going to discuss DRAGONS!  Yum.  I have been a fan of Ms Hobbs ever since I read her Farseer Trilogy, then the Tawny Man series and The Liveship Traders series.  I also greatly enjoyed the inventive fantasy Soldier Son trilogy.  Unfortunately,  I am behind on the Rain Wilds series but I am looking forward to visiting that world again when I have the time.
       


I introduced myself to Ms Hobb before the panel discussion and was extremely surprised when she invited me to go for coffee after her panel discussion and signing was completed.  I refrained (barely) from squealing and dancing around the room.  She was very gracious and I really enjoyed our discussion and the opportunity to get to know her better.  She enlightened me on several aspects of the relationship between authors and publishers that was very interesting to me, especially given my antipathy for Facebook and Twitter.  I still have the opinion that I would much rather have my favorite authors concentrate on writing their next book than interacting with me on social media (no matter how thrilling I find it to talk to them directly, lol). 

Another panel member, Marie Brennan has an interesting book that approaches the concept of dragons from the concept of a naturalist.  I was delighted to receive a review copy from her and look forward to reading A Natural History of Dragons:  A Memoir by Lady Trent in the near future.

                             

The panel itself was quite entertaining and covered a breadth of topics during the all too brief hour that elapsed.  I was greatly impressed by the excellently prepared moderator (Noelene Clark) who asked very insightful questions that utilized recent comments from the authors as well as delved into their respective histories and writing styles (Raymond Feist was a crackup with his description of the role playing game, which I assume was Dungeons and Dragons, that formed the basis for his fantastic series on Midkemia).  I will probably write more on his works in a later post as I have enjoyed many of his stories as well but I need to get back to my neglected tasks.


Contests!


Don't forget that Lisa Renee Jones is celebrating her 'Inside Out' trilogy by featuring yummy recipes (thanks to the hard work of the creative Rae) at this link.  If you mention this blog in your comments, both of us are eligible to win the food-related prize for that particular day.

Night Owl Reviews is having its Spring Fling Scavenger Hunt at this link.

Romance Books 4 Us is winding down on its April Showers Bring May Flowers contest at this link.