Recently, and by recently I mean yesterday, I went to a local gig by one of my favourite bands (Oh Pep! if you're wondering and if you've been in store on a day that I'm working you're likely to have heard them too!) who are from Melbourne. It must be pretty cool to play to your hometown after months of touring. But anyway, I digress. Before they began I saw some of the merchandise including a vinyl of their beautiful record, of course I could just buy the CD not to mention having it already on iTunes, a vinyl copy just seemed a bit unnecessary. So I thought that I'd mull over it during the performance to see if I really wanted it. Well the answer was yes. Not to flood you with my love for them but sometimes it is worth it to buy a piece of something you really love! For one their lyrics are simply sublime and having the album cover open up to two leaves with all the lyric inside is really lovely. And secondly, we met them and they signed it for me! Having a chat too with someone whose work you like is quite cool.
But how does this relate to books I hear you ask? Well, much like music (it is often lyrical thus word related) books can elicit that same feeling of fangirling. I'm not really a fan (haha) of that phrase but I'm yet to find a suitable alternative. I'll let you know when I do... There's just a very excitable feeling I have whenever I meet an author that I enjoy. If you must know I was probably a little too enthusiastic when I got to meet Maureen McCarthy when I was back in school but that was probably okay because it made up for the lack of large attendance from other students (how could they?!). You listening to them speak, unraveling their train of thought in creating the story, the characters and scenery and then you saunter up to them at the child sized desk ready with a pen in hand. I felt a bit embarrassed because some of my books (five of them) were in pretty messy condition not to mention, one was an uncorrected reading copy proof (bookshop perks!). But I realised that I had no shame regarding this and took a photo anyway ;)
That was only half an hour for me but it's nice to look back on my book and see my name written in it by the same hand that wrote my favourite stories! I definitely want to start going to more author events and have more fangirling moments. And I encourage you to do the same! Were they what you expected? In a good or bad way? Do they have ugly hand writing in real life? So many questions!
The City of Literature Website (click the image) is a great place to start looking for events as is the Wheeler Centre here.
In other news, I'm going to a talk this week about book cover design but you'll have to wait until next week to hear about that...
But how does this relate to books I hear you ask? Well, much like music (it is often lyrical thus word related) books can elicit that same feeling of fangirling. I'm not really a fan (haha) of that phrase but I'm yet to find a suitable alternative. I'll let you know when I do... There's just a very excitable feeling I have whenever I meet an author that I enjoy. If you must know I was probably a little too enthusiastic when I got to meet Maureen McCarthy when I was back in school but that was probably okay because it made up for the lack of large attendance from other students (how could they?!). You listening to them speak, unraveling their train of thought in creating the story, the characters and scenery and then you saunter up to them at the child sized desk ready with a pen in hand. I felt a bit embarrassed because some of my books (five of them) were in pretty messy condition not to mention, one was an uncorrected reading copy proof (bookshop perks!). But I realised that I had no shame regarding this and took a photo anyway ;)
That was only half an hour for me but it's nice to look back on my book and see my name written in it by the same hand that wrote my favourite stories! I definitely want to start going to more author events and have more fangirling moments. And I encourage you to do the same! Were they what you expected? In a good or bad way? Do they have ugly hand writing in real life? So many questions!
The City of Literature Website (click the image) is a great place to start looking for events as is the Wheeler Centre here.
In other news, I'm going to a talk this week about book cover design but you'll have to wait until next week to hear about that...
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