Laurie Faria Stolarz Signing

This past Saturday October 24th, I was lucky enough to attend a Q&A and book signing by both Laurie Faria Stolarz and Megan Kelly Hall at Barnes & Noble in Peabody, MA. Both authors are local to the area and are continuing their tour throughout Massachusetts this month and into next month. Most of the people there seemed to be there for Laurie, though there were a few for Megan as well. That being said, this will mostly focus on Laurie and what she had to say at the Q&A.

Lauria Faria Stolarz is the author of the Blue is for Nightmares series, Bleed, Project 17, and the new Touch Series.

Deadly Little Lies, the follow-up to Deadly Little Secret, is scheduled to be released November 10, 2009, but I was lucky enough to get a copy on Saturday. Laurie's publisher was able to get 40 copies of the book at the local B&N for the signing. I haven't started reading it just yet because I'm swamped with school stuff, but I hope to start it soon.

Here's some tidbits that I remember from the Q&A:

• Prior to becoming published authors, Laurie was a business major and Megan had some well-known professors who were authors or involved in the industry (I distinctly remember her talking about her professor who is Leo Tolstoy's granddaughter and how she ripped her writing apart)
• Laurie tries to write 10 pages per week when she's working on something. Megan is a procrastinator and lets things simmer for a while
• Both women wrote about the Danvers State Hospital, an abandoned mental institute that was shut down in 1992 (Laurie-Project 17 & Megan-Sisters of Misery)
• Both use their Massachusetts roots in their stories
• Laurie's novel Bleed was written for an adult audience, but the publisher felt it fit better in the YA genre
  
• Laurie loves writing novels in a series and developing characters over several books
• Deadly Little Game, the third novel in the Touch series is already complete. It's still being edited, but is scheduled to be released around this time next year.
• Laurie only likes to give her characters 'powers' that she feels could exist in real life
  
• Blue is for Nightmares has been optioned to be a film, but nothing has come of it yet.
  

Both Laurie and Megan were extremely nice and if you live in the area you should definitely go and say hi. I know they're holding a Friday the 13th seance (November 13th) in Marblehead.

Check out Laurie's website and Megan's website and make sure you pick up Deadly Little Lies on November 10th.