Reported by Adrienne, Teen Press Corps~
Danger Is My Middle Name panel
Is this room crazy full or what? Let’s get started! First announcement – Marie Lu’s new book, The Young Elites is out! And Sarah J. Maas has a new book out coming out next year! We received a little background on each author, including the fact that Sarah listens to Kayne West, Marie interned at Disney and is a champion at playing Mario Kart, Garth Nix lost a car tire when he was 19 in the UK, and Joelle Charbonneau once played a hooker in an MTV movie series.
After the interesting and illuminating introductions, the first question was asked: what is the greatest danger your protagonists face? Overall, dangers for boiled down to being external – monsters, evil mothers, the government, and unknown magical powers. Next we heard about what the authors look for in a strong female voice. Marie’s reply stood out a lot, and she said, “I focus on the voice, not the character, of my female protagonist.” Garth Nix says that real characters are driven by the story, with real feelings and characters. Sarah really related to the character Buffy, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, saying that Buffy really broke the barriers between girls getting categorized into two groups: tomboys and girly girls. The audience’s favorite question was this – if the protagonist could face off with any character from any other media, books, or movies, who would it be? Sarah Mass said she wants Celaena to kick Dolores Umbridge’s booty. Marie wants Day to face off with a character from Assassin’s Creed, and June to face off with Sherlock Holmes. Garth states that his characters will be facing off with LOTR antagonists, and Joelle will surely have Cia face off with Congress.
It was such a good panel!!!
