Armchair BEA: Author Interaction & More Than Just Words

Author Interaction

Let’s talk interacting with authors IRL (in real life) or online. This is your opportunity to talk about your favorite author readings that you have attended. Or, you can feature your favorite author fan moment (i.e., an author sent you a tweet or commented on your blog). Maybe you even want to share how your interactions have changed since becoming a blogger or share your own tips that you have learned along the way when interacting with authors as a blogger.

So, I've never really had the opportunity to interact with authors IRL, but I love interacting with authors online! When I love an author's books, I pour my heart into writing reviews for those books, and it's so nice when they tweet about how much they liked my review. :')

My review for Laura Lam's Pantomime started with the sentence "HOLY SHITBALLS, THIS BOOK IS AMAZING". She retweeted my review and said:

I'm a fan of any review of my book that starts with "Holy shitballs, this book is amazing." :-)
— Laura Lam (@LR_Lam) April 30, 2014

It was a truly beautiful moment.

Then last Friday I wrote a review for The Glass Republic by Tom Pollock, a book which I loved to BITS but it was so, so cruel and gave me allll the feels. Tom Pollock replied to my review tweet:

@jellyfishreads @JoFletcherBooks Thanks! Glad you enjoyed* it. *Found it unspeakably cruel.
— Tom Pollock (@tomhpollock) May 23, 2014

Then Tom Pollock later tweeted a link to my review again and then said:

Review in last link makes for happy smiling tom. :)
— Tom Pollock (@tomhpollock) May 23, 2014

And it made me a happy smiling Cynthia. (:

So there we go. I always make sure to tweet my reviews at authors if my review is a 4-star rating or above, and authors usually really seem to appreciate it. I just love talking to authors!

---

More Than Just Words

There are so many mediums that feature more than just words and enhance a story in a multitude of ways. Examples may include graphic novels and comics, audiobooks, or even multimedia novels. On this day, we will be talking about those books and formats that move beyond just the words and use other ways to experience a story. Which books stand out to you in these different formats?

I used to read manga fairly often, but that's... not really that true anymore. I mean, the only one that I read anymore is Attack on Titan, since Season 2 seems like it's never going to get here. But my favourite manga series of all time (and anime series) is Fullmetal Alchemist. I started reading it when I was 11 and it finished when I was 15, and it was so, so amazing.


I tried to pick a favourite cover from the manga volumes to show you guys but I loved every cover so much arghhhhh so I've just decided to go with the cover of the very first volume. So much nostalgia, guys, so muuuuuch nostalgiaaaaaaaa.

As for English comics, I've only ever read the Sandman series by Neil Gaiman, but man, that was THE BEST. I really need to do a reread at some point, since I barely remember anything that happened in it, but I just know that it was mindblowingly good. But I only read that series because it was by Neil Gaiman. I was probably about 15 or so and I'd read all of Neil Gaiman's books at that point and I was just like, I NEED MORE. So I read The Sandman. And I did not regret any second of it, even though it was full of nightmare fuel.


I don't really listen to audiobooks at all. I don't know, they just take so long, and I'm easily distracted so if I listen to things, I have to drop everything else I'm doing and just listen. And that's just not very realistic for audiobooks which take hours. Plus I like to linger over beautiful words, and I feel like I can't really do that with an audiobook?

Buuuut I have to say, that even though I have a LOT of episodes to catch up on since I stopped in, uh, January?, I love love love the Welcome to Night Vale podcast! (That totally counts for this topic, right?) I'm gonna try and catch up on it at some point this summer.


I just adore Cecil's lovely voice and the way he says Carlos, and all the weird and gently creepy things going on in Night Vale, and it's so delightful and funny and imaginative and awesome and atmospheric. Yeah, I really gotta catch up.

---

That's it for today! What about you? Do you like interacting with authors? What's your favourite author interaction moment? Or do you wanna talk to me about your favourite stories that are more than just words? Who wants to flail with me about FMA?