Rick Riordan's Visit to the Library

For those of you who saw my Walk Like an Egyptian post and want to know what exactly possessed me to dress in costume and dye my hair black...this is why.
Rick Riordan, author The Lightning Thief and a whole bunch of other fun books, came to visit! We had to host him off-site at a local high school so we could get a larger crowd; max capacity at the Library is about 500, but here we could fit 1500 and I think we were pretty close, at least 1200. Rick was a very engaging presenter and it was so much fun. On the down side, this was such a big event that I didn't even get to meet him, but it was still lots of fun.

This is as close as I got...




Here, Rick shows us a glimpse of his former career as a teacher:


And here we see that his mom saved his first rejection letter:


This might be the coolest part of the night: Rick gave us a chance to hear the opening of his NEXT book to be published, Mark of Athena, which comes out in the fall.



This is another part of his reading.





Here I am with the Library director at the end (almost) of a very busy night!

Walk Like an Egyptian

Okay, I didn't actually walk like an Egyptian, but I did dress like one. The cool library where I work hosted Rick Riordan, and I got to help out with the event...which required being in costume. Normally I'm not a big fan of costumes (or even a small fan of costumes), but in this case, it was probably worth it. And since Adam helped me make my costume, that helped cut down on expenses and made it a little easier for the tightwad in me to just enjoy the costume. So, what did we do to make my costume?

Well, first Adam sewed me a dress. I'd watched a few videos online about making a simple dress my just sewing folding some material in half, sewing a seam, and then putting elastic in at the top...which might work if your bust is larger than your hips, but it doesn't work so well if you are pear-shaped. So, we had to cut out an a-line dress, sew the seams, and put the elastic in at the top. Not too bad...and since I used an old sheet and some thread I already had, the only thing I had to pay for was the elastic.

Next up, Adam had suggested adding a little color. Well, Egyptians apparently liked a blue-green stone, so we made a cape-type thing out of some blue material we already had lying around the house and fancied it up by adding some gold rickrack. We also made a "belt" by sewing some decorative ribbon onto another ribbon and tying that around the dress.

I'd contemplated buying shoes but then thought maybe we could make some instead; we took an old pair of flip flops and attached some shiny ribbon with hot glue, and then I wrapped the ribbon around my ankles. Maybe not the cutest shoes I saw all night but they were cute enough...and cheap :)

For a headpiece, I just used the same ribbon I used on my shoes and sewed a little rickrack on to make it a little fancier. Then I strung some beads, attached those to the ribbon, and called it good.

The jewelry part was probably the most fun. I bought some gold bangles and some earrings, but I also made some of my jewelry, too.











I found this snake and knew I had to make it part of my costume; I had originally thought maybe I would buy a belt and attach it to that, but when I decided to make my belt instead, that option was out. I tried making it into a pin, but it was too heavy to stay on the pin backing, so I ended up just attaching it to some chain.

I wanted a pretty eye-catching necklace, but I didn't find anything at the store that I liked...but I did find these HUGE, way-too-heavy-to-actually-wear-in-your-ears earrings and decided that they would become my necklace.

I disconnected the bottom half of each earring (I still have a now-wearable pair of earrings left, since I didn't dismantle everything) and attached the pieces to a chain. Voila! My necklace was born, and I even had enough left to make a little bracelet, too.

After that, I just added some makeup...and oh, yeah, I dyed my hair (and scared myself with how dark it turned out), and while I didn't have the best costume at the event or anything, I'm pretty satisfied with the costume...and the price.

Here's the finished product:

Rick Riordan Thinks I'm Cool!

At work, we’ve been really pushing social media and just developed a social media team. One of the things we do is use Pinterest to pin stuff. Well, I’ve been working on a board with costume ideas and tutorials on how to make your own costumes and do your makeup, etc. for New York Times Bestselling Author Rick Riordan’s visit to Provo on May 2, and today, he (or his publicist) put it on his twitter feed!


(In case you can't read that, it says, "Pinterest board of costume ideas for my Provo UT event. Very cool" and has a link to the board.)

So, he said my work is very cool! Granted, he doesn’t know it’s mine, since he doesn’t know who I am, but still, he thought it was cool—and tweeted about it to 52,000 people. That sure doesn’t happen to me every day! And it is very nice to feel appreciated. (Check out the board if you want.)

Ally Carter

On June 24th, Ally Carter visited the Library, and she was awesome! Ally is the author of two teen series, the Gallagher girls series (which features a group of girls who attend a special private school to receive training to be in the CIA) and the Heist Society series (featuring a girl raised in a family of art thieves who decides to re-steal art that has already been stolen and return it to the rightful owners). Ally was very funny and personable and it was awesome to be able to have her at the library. I have some photos and videos to share...except I can't get the videos to play when I load them in Blogger, so I don't know if other people can either...but here goes.

Ally's presentation in the Library ballroom.

Adam getting some books signed for my birthday present; Ally was a little surprised to see a guy (there weren't many there), but AMM, fellow librarian extraordinaire, explained that this was my hubby and I'd left hints that I wanted this for my birthday.

Me and Ally

Staff members posing with Ally; the plaid skirts are from the GG series; the others of us are dressed as thieves,from the Heist Society series

I've been trying for weeks to get the videos to load; hopefully they work now!
Here's Ally answering which of her characters she'd want to be and which she'd want to date--pretty much the BEST question and answer of the night.

Here, Ally talks about the "love triangle" in Heist Society...which in her mind, doesn't even exist. (P.S. Afterwards, I asked Ally if she likes Hale better than Zack, the romantic lead in the GG series, and she said she does like Hale better; Zack is more complicated and Hale is pretty much the perfect boyfriend.)

I didn't quite get all of this...but basically, the aforementioned Hale (Hale being his last name, his first name being unknown--we just know his initials are W.W.) was named while Ally Carter was in Utah, visiting Temple Square! Sweet!

Ally talked about how it was a huge struggle to write the second GG novel, but not as hard to do the second Heist Society book.

Markus Zusak!!

(This photo is courtesy of Marie Teemant; the rest are mine.)

Yesterday, Markus Zusak, author of The Book Thief, Getting the Girl, Fighting Ruben Wolfe, and I Am the Messenger, came to my favorite library. I had begged and pleaded to be able to work at the event, and was able to do just that...and ended up working a 13 hour shift! Yikes! However, it was awesome! I got meet Markus just before the event, and he was very gracious and kind, and then he spoke for about an hour, and was funny and charming and delightful. Then, he set about signing books--for over six hours. Each person had a two book limit, but he personalized them all--drawing pictures and writing little messages and such. It was great to see how humble he was; I mean, we have this amazing New York Times bestselling author thanking everyone for being there and just genuinely trying to make everyone happy. As a member of the staff, I had to wait 'til the very end to get my books signed (and my sweet husband waited for several hours to get a couple of books signed for me as well), but it was worth the wait. I definitely hope he comes back--and apparently this was his second-biggest book signing ever, so maybe he will. (He said he'd like to. I'm sure we'd all agree to host him again.)

I hereby proclaim this the best day in my library career. (I also just asked Adam if someday we can name a child Markus Zusak Everitt...we'll see how that goes...and no, we are not expecting.)

Markus's presentation:

Markus signing away

Markus and meA couple brief videos...which don't really have complete stories, but still, they give you a little bit of a feel for how awesome Markus is.

:)