Alabama Book Festival

On Saturday I went with my good friends from thenest.com to the Alabama Book Festival in Montgomery. It was a great event with authors, books, booths, and more. We saw three authors there: Rachel Hawkins, Irene Latham, and Daniel Wallace. We heard them speak about their books and we even got them to sign our copies for us. I will break them down starting with Rachel Hawkins.

Rachel Hawkins is a debut author and her book is called Hex Hall. It's about a teenager who gets sent to a school for witches as punishment for a spell that she cast went wrong. Rachel read the prologue to us and it was really funny. My friends Leah and Crystal who were two of my friends that I was with met Rachel at a book signing in Huntsville a few weeks ago and Rachel remembered them. She gave them both t-shirts and when she was signing a book we all got a t-shirt. Rachel Hawkins is very down to earth and has a wonderful sense of humor. She is someone who I could go out for dinner and drinks with and talk about books and writing (I'm not a writer, but I love hearing them talk about how they come up with ideas and what inspires them). I am looking forward to reading this book.

(OK so I was trying to post pictures of Leaving Gee's Bend and Big Fish, but I'm having trouble putting them in so, I decided that since I have already typed out this big post I didn't want to delete it and start over, so I apologize for my lackluster post. I'll get a hang of this blog thing soon.)

We also heard Irene Latham talk about her book, Leaving Gee's Bend. This is her first novel but he also has done a bunch of poetry. It follows a 10-year-old girl who sets out on her own from the first time from Gee's Bend, Alabama. This is a place where years ago people made quilts which is what it was known for.

Lastly, we heard Daniel Wallace, author of Big Fish. I have not read the book or seen the movie but they say they are really good. I actually have a copy of this book at home and I didn't realize Daniel Wallace was who wrote it, or I would have brought it for him to sign it. But he read this short story he wrote called "My Shitty Job" about his first job at a vet clinic where he cleaned up all of the animal crap in the back of the clinic. It was hilarious.

There were also several vendors there. One of them was this printing press that made paintings from stamps. The man who operated it let us each have a turn and make a sign that said "Read in Alabama", it was actually the word "Read" with the picture of Alabama, and he let us keep them for free. So we all got the three authors to sign it.

This was such a fun day filled with great memories. I can't wait to do it again next year!