Wednesday, March 13, 2013

The Readers and Writers are Coming

The Bellingen Readers and Writers Festival is happening next week, and so begins the take over of our shire with reading and writing addicts.

As a librarian, it's a little bit exciting for me because I will get to rub shoulders with some well-known and not so well-known authors, and share the excitement with fellow readers.

However, I was not always excited about meeting authors.  I thought it would be a bit like meeting your favourite actor and being disappointed because they were nothing like the character you fell in love with in which ever movie or television show they star in.

And sometimes it is like that.  Sometimes it's not really the author you care about.  It's the characters that you fall in love with.

Sometimes meeting the author can be disappointing and leave you wondering how someone like that managed to write characters that you managed to love so much.

And sometimes the opposite happens, and you meet and listen to an author you've never read, and suddenly you need to devour their book(s) as soon as possible and you wonder why you never read them in the first place.

I must say that in the last five years of living here, I have met more authors than ever before.  And I must say that I have not been disappointed with any of them.

However, I do know a number of people who will never come to author events/presentations, even if that author is their favourite author - because they really don't want to know about the author or the process they followed writing their books.  They would be more excited if they could meet a character(s) from the book(s) they love.

So where do you sit dear blog reader?  Are you a meet the author junkie or are you happy just to know the characters?

1 comment:

  1. I love meeting authors. Like you I don't need to have read them before as I just love hearing them speak. Over the years I've only been disappointed with one or two talks but generally I'm enamoured by them!

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