This week, Rick Riordan hammers out a book tour; A.S. King serves up some tacos and tornados; Laurie Halse Anderson has a revolutionary school visit; poets convene in Washington State; Brendan Wenzel and Matt de la Peña get acquainted; and Scott Westerfeld and Krystal Sutherland launch their books.
Hammer Time
Rick Riordan is wrapping up a nine-city, nine-day tour for Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, Book 2: The Hammer of Thor. The first stop on the tour was to Plainville, Mass., for an event at Jeff Kinney’s bookstore, An Unlikely Story. The more intimate venue – a bookstore as compared to the theatres Riordan would fill during the rest of the tour – allowed Riordan to personally meet many fans, like this one. The epic tour took the author from New England to the South, Midwest, Pacific Northwest and Alaska, the Canadian Rockies, and to the Southwest.
Still Life with Tacos
A.S. King celebrated the launch of her new YA novel, Still Life with Tornado (Dutton) at Aaron’s Books in Lititz, Pa., on October 9. Guests ate tacos at the event, which was themed “Tacos and Tornados,” because – any excuse to eat tacos.
Living History
Laurie Halse Anderson was greeted by an elaborate, Revolutionary War-themed stage set at Richboro Middle School in Richboro, Pa., on October 11. Anderson is on tour for her newest book, Ashes, the final title in the Seeds of America trilogy.
I’m a Poet and I Know It
On October 1, nearly 40 children’s poets gathered in Bellingham, Wash., for Poetry Camp 2016, the inaugural national conference dedicated to poetry for children and teenagers. The conference, which took place at Western Washington University, was filled with workshops and sessions on writing, teaching, and performing poetry.
In the Authors’ Circle
Brendan Wenzel met a fellow author at an event for his picture book They All Saw a Cat (Chronicle) at Community Bookstore in Brooklyn on October 2. Matt de la Peña (standing) took his daughter Luna to the store for the event, during which Wenzel treated her and other guests to a reading and drawing demonstration.
Two of a Kind
Books of Wonder in Manhattan hosted a dual launch event on October 5 for Krystal Sutherland’s Our Chemical Hearts and Scott Westerfeld’s Swarm. Sutherland, who lives in Australia, is on her U.S. tour for Our Chemical Hearts. Westerfeld also has an Aussie connection – his wife, author Justine Larbalestier, is Australian and the couple splits their time between the U.S. and Australia. At the event, Westerfeld and Sutherland spoke about their paths to becoming writers, with Sutherland sharing that, as a teen, she was inspired by Westerfeld’s The Uglies and his writing blog.
