Sunday, August 26, 2012

Terry Brooks Comes to Town!

Yesterday was a great day for several reasons, one of which being that Nadine and I attended an event at the Carmel Barnes and Noble bookstore featuring NY Times Best Selling author Terry Brooks.  Terry Brooks put epic fantasy on the literary map with his 1977 publication of The Sword of Shanarra.  It stayed on the list for five months.  He has written twenty-two additional novels.

Terry spent the first hour talking to us about the writing process (see video) and then read from an upcoming novel.  He also took questions from the crowd of nearly 100 people.  We stood in line for another hour for him to sign six of his books from my library.  As he did so, we talked about writing.  I told him that I had been writing fantasy and science fiction since 1984 and that his style of bringing different plot lines together with cliffhanger chapter endings helped me in structuring both novels I have self-published.  He nodded and said, "You need to write what you like to read.  That's why you won't find any Tom Bombadils [e.g.J.R.R. Tolkien] in my stories."  Then we stood together for a picture.

Terry has created two fantasy universes: Shanarra and Landover.  He said that he is giving ten more years to finish what he wants to say.  With plans for two movies in the works (Magic Kingdom of Landover and Elfstones of Shanarra) the next ten years might be the best yet!

Check out his website: www.TerryBrooks.net

 Terry having fun with his audience
 Making a point
 Making another point
 Getting ready to read from Bloodline Quest (out March 2013)
 Signing my copy of Ilse Witch
 I ask an interesting (or stupid) question!
I amaze Terry Brooks with an insightful comment
 Terry's glad to be finished signing books for me


 


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