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My friend Maggie suggested that I start reading Kelley Armstrong’s Women of the Other World series, just as I was finishing the Sookie Stackhouse series in late spring of this year. Since she hasn’t steered me wrong, I picked up Bitten and started reading it. I think it was just before the end of the first chapter that I realized I was hooked.So when I got a chance to meet her Polaris 22 in July 2008, I took the opportunity to meet her and tell her I was really enjoying the series, at that time I was on book 2 or 3. But because of my crazy schedule with being on way too many fan panels at the convention. I did not get a chance to attend her reading at Polaris. So when I found out she was doing a reading at the North York Central Library, I jumped at the chance to attend.
I had invited Maggie to come with me, so we made a night of it. We arrived early just after 6:00pm at the North York Central Library, which I have to say, is a very cool looking library both inside and outside. After we found out where room 1 was, we headed over in case we had to line up to wait. But unlike conventions, there was no line of people and the room was locked. So we head back out and grabbed a coffee. While we were enjoying our caffeine, Maggie noticed the Kelley Armstrong had walked in to the coffee place to get her own coffee. So we knew we weren’t missing anything. After we finished we headed out and I passed Kelley, I said hi and told her we were there for her reading. She was as ever very sweet and said hi back. She also had this look on her face like she should remember me, not that she should. I am sure she meets lots of people, and I am not the kind of person that meets someone and expects them to remember me always.
So we left her to enjoy her coffee and went back to the library, by this time the room was open and a couple of people were already in there. We sat in the 2nd row in front of where Kelley would be reading. We could have sat in the front but I did not want Kelley to start to worry I was some sort of stocker, so giving her space was an important thing.
Shortly after 7:00pm Kelley was introduced and her bio was read as part of the intro and it was interesting to find out that she had once worked as a computer programmer but has escaped the evil cubicle when her books sold (the rest of us should be as lucky).
The first book she read from was ‘Personal Demon’ which was her 8th book in her ‘The Women of the Otherworld’ series and the one I had just finished reading. She read from the beginning and it was just enough to get you interested if you weren’t already.
Then she took questions, she also told people she bribed people for asking them. I asked the first one (not for the bribe) but because I wanted to know the answer BUT as a reward I got a copy of Personal Demon and even though I had it already, it would be a good lend out copy or I could always give it to a friend and get them hooked as well. My question was why she chose to write about Hope in that book. Since she had many other charters to choose from, she replied that she was interested in Hope because her powers were so different from other half demons and she wanted to explore that. There were many other good questions asked, but I do not remember them all. Kelley did go into why she wrote about supernatural’s and how she is very careful to not make them similar to other authors, as well as that she really enjoys making them more based in mythology and does a lot of research in to that for them.
After those questions she once again did a reading but this time from The Summoning her new young adult series, once again she read from the beginning and it was just enough to get you interested. I know it worked for me, since I’m not familiar with this book, but once she read even the beginning I knew I would be getting it.
After she finished she once again took some questions. Both her other series were discussed, the Darkest Powers series and the Nadia Stafford series. Also Kelley talked about her upcoming Angel comic books, which she will be writing for. I believe it is after the current ‘After the fall’ finishes, likely season 7 of Angel. She could not go into detail but did say she had a werecat in it, a reply to my question of if she has even considered writing about other lycanthropes other then werewolf’s. Her answer was no in the books, but yes in the Angel comics. She in mention that she was a big fan of the shows and that she was thrilled to be working on it.Kelley also address the rumours about her books being turned into a movie starring Angelina Jolie. She said that her book Bitten was optioned by a company, who showed the script or idea to Angelina Jolie who was very interested in playing the role. The rights were then sold it to a studio and it went really far in the process, but the studio then said that none of the big super hero girl movie did well and then gave movies like Catwoman and Elektra as examples. So they were not going to make it, Kelley was said she was glad because if they plan to make another Catwoman but based on her book, she did not think it would be any good.
After the Q&A, Kelley was nice enough to offer to sign any books of hers if we had them for her to sign. I did, I had both Personal Demon and Living with the Dead with me. When I got up to her she said, now I don’t remember your name. But I assured her that I would never have expected her to and I told her what it was, she wrote “To Magie, nice to see you again” in Personal Demon and “To Magie, Enjoy the reading” in Living with dead since I told her I was still reading it. I also told her I was so happy she was going to be writing the Angel comics! Since I was a fan of both, and that I hoped my Angel Season 6 panel at Polaris was helpful to her, she said it was that it gave her an idea of what the fans wanted to see and what they really liked.And that was the end of the reading, Maggie and I then headed to dinner at Milestone and I had a really nice meal. All in all it was a great evening!
Magie
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