2015 ILA Conference: Exhibit Hall Authors and Meg Cabot Luncheon

Sunday, July 19, 2015
Day 2: Exhibit Hall and Luncheon with Meg Cabot

Soon after our Scholastic Breakfast was finished, we headed to the Exhibit Hall to catch more autographing authors and free ARCs. Here are some of the authors we saw and the books they were promoting:

Matt de la Pena--The Hunted
Andrew Smith--Stand-Off
Pam Ryan Munez--ECHO
Dan Santat--Ricky Ricotta's Mighty Robot
Lisel Shurtliff--Jack: The True Story of Jack and the Beanstalk; Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin
Jessica Day George--Silver in the Blood
Sharon M. Draper--Stella by Starlight
T. A. Barron--Atlantis in Peril; The Hero's Trail
Jacqueline Kelly--Calpurnia Tate series
Tommy Greenwald--My Dog is Better Than Your Dog (Crimebiters #1)
Alex London--Guardian

In the midst of this literary chaos, we booked it to our YA Literature Luncheon with Meg Cabot, author of the bestselling Princess Diaries series.

When Meg was a young girl, she saw Star Wars and was intensely drawn to the character of Princess Leia. She loved how Leia was not only a princess, but she could lead a successful rebellion against the evils of the universe. From that point on, Meg began writing her own spin-off stories with Princess Leia. Unfortunately, her stories were about Leia and Luke getting together and having kids. When she saw Empire Strikes Back, Meg was absolutely devastated. She cried all the way on the car trip home telling her mother that George Lucas would never accept her spin-off stories to make into movies. So after that devastating blow, Meg left her writing skills behind and began to focus on her artistic skills.

Fast forward to college, Meg got her degree in Art at the college where her father worked. But a fellow classmate warned Meg she wouldn't get any jobs with her degree. So she moved to New York City and took the only job she could get, which was managing a college dorm. While Meg was overseeing the dorm, she went back to school, this time majoring in Creative Writing. That same classmate that warned Meg earlier was also going back to school to get his degree in Creative Writing. Later the two were married.

After Meg graduated she began submitting her work to be published. Unfortunately, everything she submitted was rejected. In the midst of this, her father passed away. With her husband's and Princess Leia's help, Meg kept up writing and submitting her work.

A few years later, her mother broke the news that she was dating one of Meg's past professors...someone Meg did NOT like. So to cope with her mother's love life, Meg began writing about a teenage girl, Mia, whose mother starts dating her teacher. But since she loved princesses so much, Meg added the twist that Mia was a princess. These, of course, became Meg's Princess Diaries books.

Meg said that she was excited for her two new books set in her Princess Diaries world: From the Notebooks of a Middle School Princess (story about Mia's unknown step-sister who is actually excited to become a princess, illustrated by Meg Cabot) and Royal Wedding: A Princess Diaries Novel (she stated that this is NOT a YA book).

A hilariously heartwarming presentation that showed Meg Cabot was a pro at expressing herself!

Next post up, the last day of ILA.