Suey and I made our way to the distant land of The King's English (ok, not that far, but with traffic it sometimes feels far). We weren't entirely sure we would get in, since it sounded like all the tickets had been sold already, but we were willing to give it a try. Good thing, too!
We were able to even sit down, despite the standing-room only tickets we purchased. We were way in the back of the room, but still able to hear and see the lovely Kathryn Stockett. I could have listened to her speak for ages. With her soft-spoken southern-accented voice, she had us all under her spell. She talked a little bit about the story behind her writing this book, and it is always so fun to learn how authors were inspired. She was funny and she was real and that's the way I like my authors. When asked about how African-Americans in general respond to the book, she said it was mixed. Some feel like it tells their story, some feel uncomfortable about it. Just like any other book, really. No book I've read has universal appeal.
I was so pleased when she quoted one of my favorite parts of The Help (mentioned in my review here) about how the point of the book was to help us realize we're all just people. Not that different.
We then got our books signed, much faster than expected - TKE really got us through the line fast! Then Suey and I headed out to dinner with two more lovely Utah bloggers - Sharla of WinterWrite (who wrote an excellent post about it) and Lyn of Barding Well. It was a pleasure to get to know them and chat about blogging and reading. Suey wrote up a much more organized and specific post about things Kathryn said and photos of the four of us. Be sure to read it, it's quite lovely.
Who's your favorite author to meet or listen to?
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