Last week, I had the privilege of attending Tomi Adeyemi's book event at Anderson's Bookshop and it was one of my favorite author events to date!
Let me tell you, I bought my copy of
Children of Blood and Bone about a week before the event and when I walked into the Naperville Anderson's Bookshop, I was nervous what signing
number I would be assigned, it was packed. One of my friends bought her book the day of the event and her ticket number was 131, luckily, I was only number 36. Yass queen. The explosion of Tomi's event was unexpected and extremely impressive. Anderson's actually sold out of books and the book talk was standing (sitting) room only. One of my favorite things about this event was how many black families were present, especially Nigerians (which may or may not have been Tomi's family, I was not paying attention). It was clear that
Children of Blood and Bone was an essential book and I'm so thrilled for Tomi's success!
The event was moderated by Veronica Roth and the two meshed really well together. I learned a lot of interesting things about Tomi and her inspiration; I was smiling from the beginning to the end of the event. Here are some of the fun facts I learned from the event!
- Tomi is from the Chicagoland area, represent!
- Tomi was inspired to write Children of Blood and Bone from a gift shop in Brazil that sold posters of the Orisha
- Tomi is a major fan of Avatar: The Last Airbender
- The giant cats in Children of Blood and Bone were inspired by Appa from Avatar: The Last Airbender
- She was writing book 2 while on tour (from twitter I saw that she just finished the first draft; yay)
- Storm from the X-Men is based on the Orisha
- Tomi listened to the Interstellar playlist while writing draft 1 of Children of Blood and Bone
- Tomi does kickboxing
It was honestly hard to take notes because I was enjoying myself too much; Tomi was a riot and she had a lot of good advice for writers. I was also surprised because
CBS news actually came by to film a bit of the event and interview Tomi. If you look very closely, you can see the back of my head.
What was the last author event you went to?
Have you met Tomi Adeyemi?
Have you read Children of Blood and Bone yet?
Labels: author events, book event, children of blood and bone, tomi adeyemi, veronica roth
