Simon & Schuster Blogger Event - 3rd February 2011

Last month I was extremely lucky to be invited to attend Simon & Schuster's 2nd blogger event and get to meet some of their authors.  I went up to London early to meet up with Sammee, Lyndsey and Vicky (you should know by now that I can never resist a trip to the massive Waterstone's in Piccadilly for a little book shopping!) and then we joined up with Carly, Becky & Dwayne for coffee and a catch up before the event.  Luckily Jenny was able to meet us and direct us to the S&S offices as I don't think I'd ever have found it otherwise.

The event was split into 2 parts the first being a Q&A panel with authors Helen Warner (RSVP), Craig Robertson (Random), Michelle Harrison (The 13 Treasures series), Justin Somper (Vampirates series), Sophie McKenzie (Girl, Missing), Milly Johnson (A Summer Fling) and Kevin J Anderson (Hellhole).  All of the bloggers had been given the opportunity to send in questions and it was really interesting listening to the authors chat about how and when they find the time to write, how they come up with their ideas and what they're going to be working on next.  I wish I'd thought to take notes about what was said but I was too busy taking pictures and just enjoying listening to the panel.

After the panel we were taken through to what I'm guessing was the conference room where S&S had laid on a fab spread of drinks and nibbles for us to munch on while we mingled.  There may also have been a large selection of books that we were allowed to raid and I may possibly have got a little carried away and ended up practically pulling my arms out of their sockets trying to drag my haul back to the train station but I'm not going to either confirm or deny those rumors!  It was lovely to get to spend time chatting with the bloggers I knew, unfortunately there were so many people there that I didn't get to meet so I'm sorry if I missed you.

The nicest thing was how approachable all of the authors were, I was able to spend a few minutes chatting to each of them and got all of my books signed.  I've already started reading the 13 Treasures series by Michelle Harrison and the Vampirates series by Justin Somper but I'm looking forward to reading books by each of the other authors who were there.  I'm sure I'll end up adding a few more favorites to my list!  As you can probably tell by the slide shows I got a little carried away with my camera, if you'd like to look at all the pictures I took you can find them online here

I'd like to say a massive thank you to Kat, Ally, Catherine and everyone else from Simon & Schuster who worked so hard to set up a wonderful event.  Thanks also to all of the authors too for taking the time to chat to us crazy bloggers (we aren't really crazy fan girl stalkers honest!).

Who Was There:

Kat, Ally & Catherine - Simon & Schuster
Craig Robertson - Author Page on S&S Website
Helen Warner - Author Page on S&S Website
Justin Somper - Vampirates Website
Kevin J Anderson - Blog
Michelle Harrison - Website
Milly Johnson - Website
Sophie McKenzie - Website

Amanda - Floor to Ceiling Books - Event Report
Becky - The Bookette

Carly - Writing From The Tub

Dwayne - Girls Without a Bookshelf

Jenny - Wondrous Reads

Liz & Mark - My Favorite Books
Lyndsey & Vicky - Heaven, Hell and Purgatory Book Reviews
Lynsey - Narratively Speaking
Matt - Teen Librarian
Sammee - I Want To Read That
(There were a lot of other bloggers there & I didn't catch all of your names so if I've missed you off let me know & I'll add your link)