Rachel Caine Book Signing Sydney May 2011

So April Script Frenzy is over and my #SpidersGroup writing group is no longer meeting for write-ins every Wednesday and Sunday. So what is a girl to do when she suddenly finds her Wednesdays free again?

Stay at work a little later? Are you crazy!  I already devote enough of my life to that place

Early night in front of the tv at home?  nice idea but no

Extra session at the gym?

Well this is me so this is not unlikely and was in fact the original plan but instead I got a better one...

attending a chat and book signing at Kinokuniya Books in Sydney with visiting US YA author Rachel Caine, author of the Weather Warden series, Outlander Season series and her most successful series the Morganville Vampires. It is in fact book 10 of this series Bite Club that Rachel Caine is in Australia to promote.

Now despite what I wrote above, I ended up staying late getting stuck at work so I actually got there about half an hour after it started and when I arrived Ms Caine was in the middle of a story her journey as a writer describing her various incarnations and pen names and the books that had been published under other them  with the calls in the middle from the publisher saying we love but you're fired in between.

After that, there were a number of the standard questions: where do you get your ideas from? What inspires you?  What would you be be if you weren't a writer?  There were questions about specific series and specific characters and ideas in those series as well as questions about whether there would be more books in those series.

Ms Caine indicated that for the moment the Weather Warden series was pretty much done, while she was currently contracted to do 12 Morganville Vampire novels and I believe there may have been one more Outcast Season novel? (Apologies - memory fails me on what was said on this last series so not quite sure).  Ms Caine however also indicated that she would assess at the end of book 12 and who knew what could appear afterwards

Overall the chat was really interesting for writers and non-writers alike, as  Ms Caine chatted about finding time in her busy life ( she was working a 60-70 hour a week job for the most of the years she has been writing and stopped in the last couple of years) and the importance of making time to write as opposed to waiting to write until there is time.  A small but important distinction.

We were also lucky enough to get a reading from the as yet unpublished book 11 of the Morganville Vampire series which was a real treat.  I was a bit worried about spoilers given I am only part way through book three (give me a break I only started the series last Monday) but there weren't really any big ones and its nice to know quite a few more to look forward to.  I aim to be up to and start reading bite club some time next week hehe.

After finishing the reading, Ms Cain kindly agreed to sign our books and pose for photographs and even more exciting for those who had their whole collections there, people could get as many or as little of their books signed as they liked

Even cooler was the cute little gifts that each person who stepped up to have their book signed reeceived: An awesome large purple book mark with one of those surfaces where the picture changes

depending on how you hold it to the light and a Morganville resident's card which had on one side the rules and on the other writing identifying the holder as an official resident of Morganville so I am set if ever I decide to travel there :)

I want to say a big thank you to Ms Caine for coming out to Australia to tour and meet all her Aussie fans.  It's not often we get overseas authors out here so it was definitely a special event and we most definitely out here again.

Thank you also to Kinokuniya books for hosting the event and allowing us to stay even after the shop had closed so that we all could have a chance to get our books signed.

All in all, defintely and awesome day!

SapphiredDragon xx