As soon as we arrived, we found ourselves in the elevator with Nathan Hale. And this is a embarrassing story that is even more embarrassing because I’m fessing up and telling you about it. I really should keep this to myself. I made a complete idiot of myself by saying, “Oh, you must be Shannon’s husband.” What was I thinking!?! Either he didn’t hear me or he was overly polite to correct me. Dumb me! Dumb me! I really hope that was my only blunder of the day. I’m so embarrassed! Have you ever done anything like that? Ugh. At least I knew he illustrated Shannon and Dean Hale’s latest graphic novel Rapunzel’s Revenge. That’s a photo on the right of Nathan hard at work doing portraits of the kids.

Because we didn’t show up at start time we caught the end of a book reading and Brandon Mull was just finishing up reading from Fablehaven: Rise of the Evening Star. He was getting quite a few laughs and was very animated.

Next we attended a science fiction/fantasy panel with the authors shown below. From left to right: James Dashner, Brandon Sanderson, Mette Ivie Harrison, and Brandon Mull.

More about each of them later. I tried to take notes but I was also trying to attend to my noisy kids at the same time. So I missed some of the finer details. Here are the notes that I jotted down:

Why do you write for children and young adults? And why fantasy?

• Brandon Mull – I wrote down C.S. Lewis which looking back I have no idea where he was going with that.
• Mette Ivie Harrison – Kids don’t prejudge a genre like adults do. And it’s not divided up into different genres. Fantasy is mixed right in with the realistic fiction.
• Brandon Sanderson – “Why fantasy? Frankly, Everything else bores me. If you can have romance with a wizard in the story, why not?!”
• James Dashner – He likes to make believe and pretend.

Where do you get your ideas?

• Brandon Mull- I didn’t write anything down for Brandon. I must have been trying to find snacks for the kids.
• Mette Ivie Harrison – Her problem is trying to get rid of ideas. She has way too many. She never writes her ideas down because they never leave.
• Brandon Sanderson – He said that he is a meticulous planner and has multiple ideas at once. He described it as atoms in your head, zipping around, colliding and forming molecules. He writes down all of his ideas because he’ll never remember them. He’s always worried about the story that got away.
• James Dashner – Said he didn’t really have an answer for that one. While driving, showering (but asked us to not picture that!), etc.

What books were influential to you?

• Brandon Mull – Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. He always thought that if he punched the back wall of his closet he would be able to get through. Also Lord of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien because he saw everybody reading it, but was told that he was too young (before age 12). So he read it and knew he was too young because he didn’t understand anything that was going on but he loved it nevertheless.
• Mette Ivie Harrison – Arthurian legends, Perry Mason, Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, and all the Star Trek novelizations. She has to read an entire series all the way through before she can move on to anything else.
• Brandon Sanderson – I don’t know the first book he mentioned but the second was the Dragonflight Series by Anne McCaffrey.
• James Dashner – Fablehaven by Brandon Mull (obviously sucking up). Seriously though, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle and Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card.

What is your favorite book that you have written?

• Brandon Mull – Fablehaven: Grip of the Shadow Plague
• Mette Ivie Harrison – Son of Arthur. Did I get this one right? Is this what she’s writing now or something she just wrote for fun?
• Brandon Sanderson – Acatraz Versus The Evil Libariansis the funniest and I didn’t catch the other book he mentioned.
• James Dashner – Book two of 13th Reality serieswhich will be released next spring.

How do you learn to write?

• Brandon Mull – Read a lot! Be critical and deconstruct your favorite books. Brandon wrote for a comedy troupe in college and because of the instant audience feedback became aware of what the audience wanted.
• Mette Ivie Harrison – Sit down and write. You’ll never write anything perfect so don’t even try.
• Brandon Sanderson – Read and practice!
• James Dashner – Practice and be a voracious reader.

What type of creatures are going to be in your next book?

• Brandon Mull – Griffins and dragons.
• Mette Ivie Harrison – Something that she called a Snowbird, which when she thinks about it, is really just a dragon.
• Brandon Sanderson – Undead librarian ghosts. Huh??
• James Dashner – Some type of robotic monster.

Where do you come up with the names of your characters?

• Brandon Mull – If it’s a everyman character he chooses a everyman name. Otherwise he looks for the “flavor of the sound,” brainstorms or it just comes.
• Mette Ivie Harrison – Her husband wouldn’t let her name her kids after literary figures so she names most of her characters after them instead.
• Brandon Sanderson – He just really, really likes the sound of Alcatraz.
• James Dashner – Atticus is homage to To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and Higginbottom was a kid in his high school.

Next was book signings! Everybody was really nice, especially since I admittedly hadn’t read many, if any, of their books. Gasp!  I am looking forward to discovering many new great books! First up was Ann Dee Knight Ellis (left) and Jessica Day George (right). And I might note that this photo is my first ever debut of a photo of myself on this blog. Now you know what I look like. Lucky you.

Ann Dee Knight Ellis debut YA novel This is What I Did came out last summer. I’ve since visited her blog here and read reviews of her book and I have to tell you, I’ll be reading it for sure. I kinda felt guilty that I didn’t have her sign a book but she was very nice. And I read from her blog that the library where this event was held was where she had her wedding party. It’s a beautiful library with a really nice ballroom.

Jessica Day George is the author of Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow (which is the one she signed for me), as well as Dragon Slippers and Dragon Flight. I look forward to reading all of these books. She told me that Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow is the best of the three and if I were to only read one, it should be that one. Visit Jessica Day George’s website here.

Next up: James Dashner.  How’s that for a big photo.

This was the first time that I’ve met James Dashner although we do have a back history. My husband Taylor is an aspiring writer. While on the train to work one day he noticed a guy reading over a manuscript and so Taylor asked if he was a writer. It was James Dashner going over the final proof of The 13th Reality: The Journal of Curious Letters. He was kind enough to answer all kinds of questions and even emailed Taylor with some further advice. When James saw Taylor he said, “Hey, the guy on the train!” When I introduced myself as Natasha Maw, he immediately said, “Oh yeah, the one with the blog!” Yay! He knew about my blog without my having to mention it! Plus we found out that we literally live down the street from each other (okay a few miles, but still). He signed our book by saying, “So glad to know you guys. Keep writing.” He was really awesome and loved to talk. So stop by his blog here and find out what he thought the highlight of the festival for him was. Book two of The 13th Reality series comes out next spring.

Who’s next? It’s Brandon Sanderson. And what an awful picture. You would think that we could have come up with something better than this. Please disregard the backlight and the girl in the background. My degree is in photography so I really hate photos like this. But it’s the best I’ve got and I obviously wasn’t taking the photo.

I have to admit that my husband did most of the talking here as my kids were almost on the verge of a breakdown. I believe that they talked about how to write, book suggestions and the likes. My husband says that Brandon told him for a really good story you need 3-4 really good ideas and 3-4 good ideas per character.

Brandon is a new to me author and I asked him which of his books I should read first. Especially to someone who is new to the Fantasy genre and who has never read any C.S. Lewis or J.R.R Tolkien (Gasp! Well, I have read The Hobbit). Brandon said Alcatraz Versus The Evil Libarians was really funny and if I could get past the weird names in Elantris that would be my best bet. I told him I actually never sound out names while reading, I see it but don’t register it. Sometimes I’ll finish a book and not know the names of main characters. So we bought Elantris so he could sign it and I think my husband took it to bed with him last night. Visit Brandon’s website here.

Next I met up with Mette Ivie Harrison. And even my little guy got in on the action.

Mette Ivie Harrison signed Mira, Mirrorand inscribed “the best magic is love!” I’m looking forward to reading this one to find out what it means. Mette’s other books are The Princess and the Houndand The Monster in Me. Read Mette’s blog here to find out what she thought of the event and I’m pretty sure the person in question is Stephenie Meyer who was in town doing a book signing. And Mette is a runner who apparently ran a half marathon the very same morning.

Next was the very gracious Sara Zarr.

I have seen Sweetheartsbeing reviewed by bloggers everywhere. So how could I resist picking this one up to be signed. I’m also looking forward to reading Story of a Girl, which was a National Book Award finalist. She said to let her know if I enjoyed it. But if I didn’t like it, well, she’d rather not know. Read her blog post about the event. And I thought it very funny that the second photo down my husband is in the background (long hair, white shirt) and you can see my toddler’s legs hanging from his stroller.

Next we waited in line for Brandon Mull.

The first thing Brandon says is “Hey, I’ve met you!” But he’s not talking to me, he’s talking to my husband. And in fact it’s true. They did meet when my husband got the first Fablehaven book signed. And my husband afterwards emailed him for writing tips and Brandon was relieved to hear that he did email us back.

I knew it was risky but I went ahead and mentioned to Brandon that I had read and reviewed the first Fablehavenbook on my blog (my review here). “Thanks! Thanks so much” he said with so much enthusiasm that it almost broke my heart to tell him that the review was actually lukewarm. I mean I couldn’t tell him that it was a great review, what if he actually read it and then thought “She lied right to my face!”

Anyways, I went on to say that I was obviously very much in the minority and everybody said that I had to continue with the series because it only gets better. And that he has some very enthusiastic fans out there. Plus, I’m fairly new and not well read to this genre, but discovering a new genre was one of my 2008 reading goals. He was glad to hear it and said that if I didn’t like the second book by the end that I should just move on and not bother.

And I wish that I had congratulated him on the recent birth of their baby girl. Brandon Mull’s other books include Fablehaven: Rise of the Evening Star, Fablehaven: Grip of the Shadow Plague, and The Candy Shop War. Visit Brandon’s website here and his blog here.

Who’s next? How could there possibly be more? Yes, it’s SHANNON HALE! I was most excited to meet Shannon. Probably because I’ve actually read her books and she had this energy around her that was amazing. And seriously, don’t you think we could be sisters? I think we have the same face shape.

Shannon was super nice. In fact, Shannon was our last stop of the day and my kids were done! Needless to say that they were making so much noise that Shannon called us up and we got to cut in line. Shannon signed Book of a Thousand Daysmy review here) with “For Natasha – You are cooler than yaks” and Princess Academy(my review forthcoming) with “For Natasha – Thanks for being such a wonderful mom and reader. You rock” and The Goose Girl (still to be read) with “For Natasha – Who is a true princess in disguise.” I thought it was fun that she took the time to write fun messages. And I realized that I left my copy of Austenland(my review here) at home. Didn’t even think of that one.

And if you’re wondering what Shannon was doing for dinner that night, I’ll tell you. Apparently having dinner with Stephenie Meyer. Fun! Visit Shannon’s blog here.

What a day!! So many authors. I only wish that we could have attended more of the readings and workshops but you can only do so much. And if you can believe it, this was the first annual Provo Children’s Festival. I can only imagine that it will only get better. There were also a lot of children’s picture book authors and illustrators as well.

So that was it. Hope you had fun reading all about it. And as I read these great books watch for upcoming author interviews because each one said they would love to do a Q & A. So if you’re not subscribed to my feed I suggest you do!

As for me, on to book reviews!