Yesterday, my sister and I went to Utrecht for a YA event where V.E. Schwab would be attending. Since she’s one of my favourite authors, I really wanted to go, even though big(ger) events are really out of my comfort zone.
So we took a trolley to fit all of our (well, my) books that we wanted to get signed, and we went!
The event started with author interviews in a theater setting, which are always interesting. It was really fun listening to V.E. Schwab talk about writing and introverting and how she was prophesied to become either an author or a cult leader.
I was also lucky enough to meet some of my friends there, which is always really fun, as we talk to each other all the time, but don’t actually get to meet “in real life” very often.
Unfortunately, we had to wait in line for over 1.5 hours to get our books signed, since we ended up at the end of the signing line. I’ll be honest, this was very exhausting. But it was well worth it, because it was such a lovely experience!
We were allowed to get one book signed and personalized, and two other books signed, but Schwab felt so bad about us having to wait so long that she personalized all five of my books (my sister only had one book, so she got two of mine signed as well)! We also had a nice little chat with her.
Have you ever gotten to meet one of your favourite authors?
Anniek's Library 
Oof I’m so happy now we were out so quickly, I heard they continued way past the time the event was supposed to end…
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Yes, it ended like an hour later…
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I was lucky enough to meet Victoria at a book festival in DC. I love her so much, she’s so sweet and considerate! I was in line for about an hour or so because there were so many people in line for her signing that it went over the designated time, but V made sure to stay and sign until everyone got a chance to meet her!
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She was honestly so nice! She stayed well over an hour longer here as well, and she kept signing three books for everyone! Last year, they cut back to one book per person towards the end, which felt pretty unfair to me
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I know, she’s so thoughtful! I’ve never read This Savage Song or The Archived, I’m gonna have to check them out. Vicious and Vengeful are my favorites.
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If you loved Vicious, I think you’d really like This Savage Song as well, as it has the same sort of moral ambiguity!
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I was there too and we waited for like 45 minutes. Thankfully, otherwise I would have missed the meet & greet with Enrico Galiano which I had won. We did the signing briefly because of this and I didn’t take a selfie. One of my friends did though. When we left at 5:30-ish the line was still insanely long! It has been organised much and much better than last year though, but the time slots still didn’t work out properly as there was literally no one to check them. the best signings were with marissa Meyer and Stephanie Garber ones, they queued per 25 people and you had a wrist band with a number. So the line was not super long. But Stephanie (and the other authors at YALTival) really took the time to sign which caused people to wait even longer still.
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I’ve met V at a couple of events now, and she’s always so much fun to listen to. It can be a very long wait though, I’ve had that at almost all author signings I’ve been to (she says as if it’s been more than 3 or 4!)
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It does depend on how well organized the event is, but I suppose you can only diminish the waiting time so much when there’s hundreds of people attending
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The last one was really good and let people to the front if they would have trouble standing in line for a long time, but I wasn’t confident enough to ask
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That’s always a problem, having to be assertive enough to ask for accomodations!
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I’m having to get a cane for my stupid knees, and I have to admit one of the reasons I gave in (apart from the obvious one!) was that it’s a visible cue that I’m not just lazy/awkward/taking advantage
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I can definitely understand that! I bet it works like that for many people, as others can be so judgy when it comes to (invisible) disabilities
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Great post I’m glad you had such a great time 👻💜
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Thank you!!
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You’re welcome 👻💜
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Ahhh I’m so happy you had the opportunity to meet her! She’s so lovely.
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This is so cool!!! V.E. Schwab is definitely on my list of authors I’d love to meet someday, and I’m so glad you had a good experience with meeting her 😀 And that’s sweet that she personalized all of your books since you had to wait so long!
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She was really amazing! I hope you get to meet her one day as well!!
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Oh my goodness that’s so cool that you got to meet her!! And that she personalized all your books!! I’ve never gotten to meet any authors, but I saw a Veronica Roth and Tahereh Mafi talk once which is the closest I’ve been to any popular author.
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It was really amazing! I would love to meet Tahereh Mafi one day!!
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Omg that’s so awesome! I’d absolutely love to meet Schwab. I’d also totally love to meet Kristoff, Kaufman, Gaiman, Sanderson… The list could probably go on forever 🤣I’ve never had the chance to meet authors before because I don’t live somewhere that’s popular on the map lol I’d totally love to one day!
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They never come anywhere close to me either! I always have to drive for 2 hours…
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