Like a kid anxiously waiting to leave on vacation to Disney World, I am about to burst waiting to meet an author.
On Sunday, February 19th, I will spend an afternoon with Stephen King.
To be exact, several hundred others and I will attend the closing ceremony of the Savannah Book Festival where Stephen King will be the speaker.
Tickets went on sale few months before the event. All of Savannah seemed to be buzzing about Stephen King coming to town. I marked the date the tickets were going on sale with a red circle on my calendar.
I was not going to miss this for anything in the world.
The circled day arrived. A long line wrapped around the corner of the box office three hours before the tickets went on sale. Shortly after the tickets went on sale, the event sold out.
I was lucky to get two tickets. By the way, instead of waiting in the long line, I went to a nearby coffee shop with WIFI and ordered online. My grandma would say that was using my noggin’.
I’ve read that this is the only book festival in 2012 at which Stephen is speaking. The tickets are in huge demand. Right now, I could get five hundred times what I paid for them, if I put them up for sale.
However, I won’t.
Stephen King has rock star status to me. Just being able to sit in an audience, in the same space, breathing the same air as Stephen, is priceless to me. Even if I might have to use binoculars to see him. And then to actually hear him speak, I’ve got goose bumps already.
I am a book dork, and I admit it.
Authors are like stars to me. I have pictures of me with so many authors including Meg Cabot, Nora Roberts, Christina Dodd, Heather Graham and more.
I feel like such a geek; I treat authors as some would treat professional athletes, or movies stars or rock stars. To me, Stephen King is a rock star. Actually, Stephen and a few other authors including Roy Blount, Dave Barry, and Amy Tan formed a band together, the Rock Bottom Remainders. Therefore, they really are rock stars.
After the 19th, I’ll have to write a post about what my afternoon with Stephen was like.
But for now, to all of you out there in WG2E land, what famous person would you like to spend time with, and why? What would you ask them?
The Best of The WG2E Author Rock Star Wishes — Lois Lavrisa
I met King – very briefly – at Mystery Writers of America a few years ago. I also listened raptly to his talk that day. You will enjoy it – he’s one of the smartest writers in the world. That’s why I listen to “On Writing” almost yearly – for inspiration.
Mitzi, green….
Mitzi, wasn’t he grand marshal for the MWA one year? In addition, I love “On Writing” one of my favorite writers books on writing
I love “On Writing,” too! That book hits home with me.
Tamara, to me “On writing” is a must read once a year:)
I agree, there are some author rock stars and Stephen King is one of them. Enjoy the event, Lois.
Kiru, Thank you for your comment. I don’t think he’ll be in his “band” mode this Sunday at the closing event of the Savannah Book festival, but I’m sure whatever he talks about will be great:)
I’ve had the distinct pleasure of meeting some. Eloisa James is one of the smartest and nicest people you’d ever want to meet. And Sherilyn Kenyon is as sweet as can be.
I’d love to hear Susan Elizabeth Philips, Dan Brown, and John Grisham speak.
Pamela, you are so right! Sherilyn and Elosia are so sweet. They attend a lot of conferences, and even though they are star authors, they will always take time to stop and talk with you
Good Mornin’, Peeps!
What I luuuvvv about your post, Lois, is that it also teaches us the flip-side of this dynamic…in that to our readers, we are their “rock stars”.
In other words, we can take your feelings and excitement about meeting one of your literary rock stars and apply that to how many of our readers may feel about us.
What’s important about this is that we always keep in mind how precious those relationships are and do everything we can to make ‘em grow.
That’s how we build our readership bases.
And now…thanks to the internet, we can “meet-up” with our readers every day, and give them A-mazing access to our worlds…no ticket needed!!!
Enjoy your event!
P.S. Let’s see…and as far as my literary “rock star” moments, I’ve had the joy of meeting Nora Roberts (three times), Janet Evanovich and her superfab cool daughter Alex, Meg Cabot, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Debbie Macomber, Kate White (yep…as in Cosmopolitan’s Editor in Chief and Bestselling Author), Carly Phillips, Eloisa James, Jennifer Crusie, Kate Collins, Bob Mayer, Joe Konrath and many, many more…and who’d I’d go totally ga-ga to meet would be Candace Bushnell!!!
Oh and one of my fave meet-ups ever was with Suzanne Brockmann and her husband Ed. Luuuvvv them!!!
It’s so cool to meet the writers behind the books that we love. You have an all star line-up
That is so cool. I would love to meet Stephen King. Don’t think you’re alone in your obsession with famous writers though. I left my house at four in the morning and drove three hours to make it into NYC last summer to hear Diana Gabaldon speak at the RWA nationals. She’s my all time favorite author and was one of the opening speakers. She was amazing, brilliant, and totally worth it. As serendipity would have it, I had the rare opportunity to have a nice chat with her later that morning. She was very sweet and personable. I’m happy to say I didn’t fumble over my words or swoon.
PJ, how wonderful that you had a chance to meet your favorite famous author:) I really think that famous authors are so cool, and unassuming and just great:)
I know what you mean about their being your ‘rock stars’. I feel like that too when I meet other well-known authors here in the UK. I have met: Katie Fforde, Christina Jones, Beryl Kingston, Sophie King, Elizabeth Chadwick, and many other romance authors. All of them belong to the RNA, and I’ve met them either at talks or conferences. I remember when I first met Dee Williams. I was thinking to myself, ‘Oh my God. It is Dee Williams.” I still do.
Julie- thank you for sharing and commenting! I’m so glad that I’m not alone in thinking that authors have rock star status!
Lois, I took a few workshops with Stephen King over the years. One was in London. He is the most generous of authors. So giving of his time. I remember an early conference in Florida. There were an estimated 600 people in line to get his autograph. He treated each person from the first to the last as if they were the only person in the world. He is the genuine article.
Enjoy! Lucky Duck!
Hey, I wish I had an extra ticket for all of you!
PS… famous person I would like to meet? I’m still waiting for Johnny Depp to call me back. I’m keeping one line free for John Cleese. I like my Johns.
LMAO, Barbara!!!
You’re a hoot!!!
Hey, and Johnny just might call you Barbara!
Lois,
I thought SEP was the greatest though. She was just really so cool. 
I’ve been fortunate enough to meet Nora Roberts, Suzanne Elizabeth Phillips, Stephanie Laurens and Suze Brockman. All ladies were gracious and fun and so willing to chat with me when they heard I was a writer too.
I heard Suze Brockman speak at a regional conference and she’s so passionate about writing. She has so much excitement for the romance genre.
Abbey, authors are sooo approachable- that is what I love about them/ us!
Lois, great post!
As a proud geek, that’s always been one of the amazing about science fiction conventions. The biggest authors will just chat (no, no…not electronically)
with their readers.
I always remember getting to see Isaac Asimov and Harlan Ellison, who had a sort of Fred Allen/Jack Benny fake feud speaking together at a World Con. While that was on stage, they were also just simply in the halls speaking with people.
I believe that’s also true with some other genres (romance and mystery authors are, I think, equally approachable at conventions).
Who knows? Maybe you’ll get what doctors call a “hallway consultation” with Stephen King! How cool would that be?
Congratulations on getting to see and hear one of your favorites!
Bufo- Thank you for putting the vibes out there for me to meet Stephen! Who knows, right???
Lois, I wanted to let you know that your post inspired a post for me at ILMK…crediting you for the inspiration, of course.
http://ilmk.wordpress.com/2012/02/15/good-author-bad-author-does-being-nice-matter/
You are too sweet! I loved your post, thanks for the credit too:) I’m Glad to help inspire an idea…
Elmore Leonard. I’d like to spend a couple of hours with him, visiting about his writing and his life. I’ve read all his books, seen all the movies and of course am enjoying “Justified” each week on tv.
Bill, maybe soon you will meet Elmore, I am a big believer if you put the energies/thoughts out there, the universe answers. Sorry to sound so woo woo, but who knows?
Oh boy, I would probably not bat an eyelash at meeting Stephen King. Sorry, while I appreciate the strides he has made in modern genre fiction, I’m not really a fan of his writing style. ::ducks pens, sticky note blocks, and staplers being thrown at me::
Rock start status? For me would be meeting J. K. Rowling. That might actually give me heart palpitations. I wonder if she had Mommy guilt was she was writing Harry Potter, “Ugh, I need to write this book but am I ignoring my children too much to get it done?” I love her writing, for its simplicity and ability to transport me there.
I would also LOVE to meet Patricia C. Wrede. Most won’t know who she is, she’s the author of “Dealing with Dragons.” It was a book on one of my elementary school reading lists, and her character Cimorene had a profound effect in shaping my attitude of “Screw my gender, I can do whatever I set my heart to…” I sent her an email a few months back and to my great surprise, I received one BACK. That was a rock star moment.
But I don’t just love children’s novelists. I’d love to have lunch with Sophie Kinsella (Madeleine Wickham). I DID have dessert and coffee with Darla Shine, author of the Happy Housewives Club. I think I disappointed her because I wasn’t starstruck.
D.D., you’re right, to the readers, at least some of them, we are rock starts. Most don’t get the whole indie vs. traditionally published thing. They only know we wrote a book that they bought or got for free, that they loved, and they are impressed that they can talk to us. I had the sweetest messages on Facebook from readers who met me through a few of the promotions and blog stops I had in January, things like “I know you must be really busy, and I didn’t want to be so forward as to publish on your wall….” I wrote back to every single one of them, “I ALWAYS HAVE TIME FOR A READER. ALWAYS!”
One, bless her heart, I friended and she wrote back thinking I had made a mistake and clicked the wrong person, because she was just a *reader* but she friended me back before I could change my mind! THAT blows my mind…..
You are so right, readers are so important, they are number one! Thanks for sharing Elizabeth:)
I’ve been fortunate to meet a fair amount of authors at National and my local WisRWA chapter conferences. All were super nice and very generous with their time. No divas in the bunch.
Even Jennifer Cruise and Bob Mayer showed up in our hospitality suite for some evening cocktails.
SEP’s workshop/talk at National was great in 2006. She’s the best!
Have fun with Stephen! Hope you don’t need those binoculars to get a good view.
Stacey, Jennifer and Bob give the best workshops, and they are great people too. I’m so glad that you have gotten to meet so many authors:)
I don’t read Stephen King… Okay I read On Writing and loved it, but his genre would keep me up at night for five days…. Anyway It’d be cool to meet him and all. He is a New Englander, and I lived in Maine the first four Years of my life, grew up on Cape Cod… *Gah* Let me re-focus *grin*
For me most of my Rock Star writers have passed away. Some more recently than others, and I wish… oh gosh I SO wish I’d knew then what I know now because I WOULD have sent them fan mail. Especially Anne McCaffery, her Pern books got me through a tough time in my life. Menolly and I were best frineds, so to speak. Other authors I’d love to meet, Madeleine L’Engle, Mercedes Lackey, C. S. Lewis, R.R. Tolkien… And oh Yes R. K. Rowling! (Totally with Elizabeth Ann West on wondering if she had mommy guilt).
Thankfully, I know two young recently published writers so I can be their number one fan from the get go. *giggles*
:} Cathryn
Cathryn, thank you for sharing.
Cathryn, oh I would so love to meet Rowling too:) thank you so much for sharing!
Great Post Lois!
I LOVE Stephen King, he is totally one of my “Rock Stars”! My all time favorite book is “The Stand” and his newest book, 11/22/63, was FANTASTIC!
As a Reader, I get a big kick out of an Author “befriending me” on Facebook. It makes me feel really special! They always seem to be really generous with their time, as we chat, sharing common interests. Love you guys! Thanks so much for sharing!
Jill, 11/22/63 is going to be a summer read for me! I’m like you in that I get a kick when an author friends me too. Thank you for sharing:)
You’ll love it!
I listened to it on Audiobook, they used a great narrator. (helps pass the time in crappy traffic)
When I worked in Chicago, I use to have a three-hour (or more) round trip commute to and from the Southside of Chicago to the upper north side along Lake Shore drive. Add snow and the drive home could take three hours alone. Audio books would have been great then. Now I have a ton of short drives- five minutes up to thirty- but I think I can still do the audio. Some way- I will get to “read” or “listen” to 1/22/63
RWA has a National conference every year and a Literacy signing with over 500 authors. It was amazing to see Nora Roberts and Susan Elizabeth Phillips, and Linda Lael Miller. But the best experiences I had was stopping by the tables of the lesser-knowns. I had followed them on the internet and loved their books. To talk to them while they signed my books was beyond awesome. I tried to explain to my husband about the rock god-ness of published authors, but he just didn’t get it.
He would be very jealous to know you are going to see Stephen King in person. He understands THAT rock god-ness.
Jill, thank you for sharing. I have been to so many RWA chapter conferences, and one national in Atlanta. You are right, there are many authors at these events and they are so nice and very approachable too:)
Though I doubt that he will, I’d love to hear if Stephen King mentions the amnesiac mystery novelist Dan J. Marlowe in his talk. King dedicated his novel The Colorado Kid to Marlowe, calling him “hardest of the hardboiled.” I’m publishing a 95,000-word biography of Marlowe in June: GUNSHOTS IN ANOTHER ROOM: THE FORGOTTEN LIFE OF DAN J. MARLOWE. It would be nice to find out that King still talks about Marlowe.
Charles, I will “meet” king Sunday, I will let you know if mentions Marlowe:)
I went to an event with one of my favourite YA authors, Maggie Stiefvater, and managed to get a photo with her and have a brief chat – that was awesome
Miriam, what a treat for you to meet your favorite YA author:)