Tuesday 27 May 2014

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

18 comments:

  1. West Virginia Red27 May 2014 at 14:16

    I still get all fangirl excited when authors retweet my reviews (not that it happens all that much).
    And audiobooks are all about the narrator for me. I am always looking at the reviews of the reader before anything else.

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  2. I've been meaning to get around to the rest of Sandman but haven't yet as my brother and I are slowly going through Fables. But one of these days I'd love to read the rest of that series. And yay for manga! I never got around to reading Fullmetal Alchemist but I did get the gist of the story, which sounded very interesting :)

    Day 2 @ my blog

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  3. Oooh, I hope you like Sandman when you read it! It's so gooood. I just looked up Fables and it actually sounds like something I'll be interested in reading, so maybe I will check them out at some point! So many issues to go through though, eeeek!


    Fullmetal Alchemist was the first anime/manga I was ever interested in, so a lot of my love for it is the nostalgia factor, but it is a very good series. Such a lovely twisty plot and wonderful characters. *happy sigh*

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  4. Thanks for stopping by my post! I would love to check your blog out too but you haven't linked to it?


    And yeah, I get so excited! I've had a lot of luck with authors retweeting my reviews and tweeting me to say thanks so far, and it's just been so wonderful. (:


    Hmm, yeah, the narrator would obviously be so important! I'm so picky about voices.

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  5. hahaha "unspeakably cruel" love that!

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  6. "HOLY SHITBALLS, THIS BOOK IS AMAZING" - LOLOLOL.

    I still read manga and watch anime but definitely not as much as I used to. Haha, I'm reading the Attack on Titan manga for the same reason. And Fullmetal Alchemist!! Loved that anime (though I have yet to watch Brotherhood or read the manga)
    I don't read English comics, but LOVE audiobooks!!

    OMG Welcome to Night Vale!!! <3333 I love, love, love that podcast. (but I'm behind too)

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  7. Yeah. (: It was an unspeakably cruel book.


    Thanks for stopping by! Wanna leave a link to your blog so I can check it out? (:

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  8. You bet!

    http://libraryeducated.blogspot.com/

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  9. Hehe. I was very tickled by how much Laura Lam liked that. :D


    OMG WATCH BROTHERHOOD OR READ THE MANGA OR BOTH. The first FMA series, while I am incredibly fond of it since I watched it at the impressionable age of 11, pales in comparison to the actual plot that Hiromu Arakawa meant for the series. God, the first FMA series just made up so much shit as it went along and it was all kind of ridiculous in the end. Lots of fun, and I loved it so much, but seriously, THE ACTUAL PLOT WAS SO MUCH BETTER AND MAKES TONS MORE SENSE. ALSO SO MANY MORE AWESOME CHARACTERS NO SERIOUSLY YOU MISS OUT ON ALLLLL THE BEST CHARACTERS IF YOU ONLY WATCH THE FIRST SERIES. Ling! May Chan! HER PANDA!!!! OLIVIER ARMSTROOOOOOONG. I'm doing a Brotherhood rewatch at the moment and it is still so incredible. So much awesome in my eyeballs.



    Yay you like WTNV! Ahhhh we must catch up at some point.

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  10. Elizabeth Bevins27 May 2014 at 22:23

    I got to hear Douglas Adams read from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy once a long time ago. Got to meet him and get our book signed. He was very cool! More recently I connect with authors via Twitter. It's great to be able to quickly let a writer know you enjoyed their work.

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  11. Ohhh, that is so cool re the tweet from Laura Lam! I loved Pantomime too.


    And I LOLed about the one from Tom Pollock. I love when authors have a sense of humor about a review.

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  12. Tell me about it (re: the number of issues in Fables); sort of had a mini-heart attack when I saw that it was on-going but I'm already hooked so it's too late to turn back now! lol. I also heard good things about Unwritten (which is similar to Fables but I can't remember if it's legends/mythology that the story looks at or whatnot) but I'll have to put that on hold until I clear up some of my graphic novel reading lists :)

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  13. Yes, I love Fullmetal Alchemist too, though I haven't actually finished the manga XD I'm just too slow with it. I've seen the anime (both of them actually) at least a twice of times.

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  14. West Virginia Red29 May 2014 at 04:41

    Sorry, you can find me at http://wvredreads.com/ Come on by.

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  15. Really? For some reason I thought it was "just" a remake. But you say the plot is different/better?!! Hmmmm, I think I know what I'm going to marathon watch next :D

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  16. Nope. The first FMA anime was made way, way before the manga was finished, so they just took the first part of the plot and then ran with it and made up the rest for the first anime. FMA Brotherhood was made after the manga finished, so follows the plot of the manga from start to finish. It's excellent. :D I hope you enjoy it!

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  17. That is awesome author interaction. Don't hate me for thinking differently about Pantomime, but that is still amazeballs she tweeted that.

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  18. You didn't like Pantomime? Ah, oh well. We all have different tastes. It was pretty awesome that she tweeted that. (:

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