~post by Laura & Emily of Teen Press Corps
POWERS STRANGE & PERILOUS
Authors: Maggie Stiefvater, Robin LaFevers, Lisa McMann, Cinda Williams Chima, Melissa de la Cruz, Mike Johnston, Rosemary Clement-Moore
At this awesome event Rosemary Clement-Moore, the fantastic fantasy author, is narrating with the other authors Lisa McMann, Robin Lefevers, Maggie Stiefvater (who just so happens to play the bagpipes), Cinda Williams Chima (EEEEEEEEP!), and the writing couple of Michael Johnston and Melissa de la Cruz in attendance.
After Romsemary Clement-Moore’s fantastic intro, Maggie Stiefvater was the first to receive a question from Rosemary. The question was how she incorporates her life into her writing. According to Maggie, she beats the writer’s block demon by busying herself with other things. Those things get her motivated to go back to her writing.
There were tons of great snippets from each of the authors.
Cinda Williams Chima back in the day just so happened to be an amazing vocalist but an abysmal guitarist. It’s a personal theme which happens to manifest itself in her writing quite a lot.
Michael Johnston used to be an architect and he used that to illustrate Frozen. Melissa de la Cruz, his wifey, uses her life in her books For example, her cousins were black-jack dealers and she used that as her basis for Frozen.
Robin believes that her obsession with history and her favorite past time, day-dreaming, really influence her writing.
Lisa McMann loves reality TV, and she incorporated some of the best elements of what we all love about those shows into Crash Btdubbs, Lisa is a total foodie!
The next question was, “Does great power come with great responsibility?” The answers centered around the moral question about whether it would be your obligation to save someone; even if you didn’t know them and it required you to risk your life in the process. This is totally relevant because a lot of the author’s novels involve their characters dealing with this moral dilemma while struggling to discover the full potential of their powers. Melissa De La Cruz even went so far as to mention the power of authors, and the influence they can have on their readers.
The last question, but definitely not the least, that Rosemary asked was, “How do you keep your character’s powers straight?” Cinda can rely on her fans to keep her straight. She explains that she often gets long emails explaining all her typos and mistakes. Melissa De Latin Cruz, and Robin LaFevers have been known to keep graphs and tables to avoid any sort of mix up.
Rosemary then led the panel into a festive-filled session of questions from the audience that included many laughs, much advice, and some sassy remarks that ended the panel on a strong note.
COMING UP NEXT
Something Fierce this way comes…..