Last Sunday was absolutely amazing. I met the one and only V.E. Schwab. She was so kind, and I felt really at ease. I am still shaking from the whole experience!
V. E. (Victoria Elizabeth) Schwab is an American writer known for her novel Vicious, the Shades of Magic series, and The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, which was nominated for the 2020 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel and is one of my favourite novels of all time.
Interview
The day started off at 1.30 pm, that’s when the venue opened its doors. There was already a huge line waiting at the door, which made it quite hard to enter the actual building. Just behind the doors there was a table with a selection of her books. The rule for the book signing was that we could bring one book we had at home and buy as many books from the book stand as we wanted to get signed. I ended up bringing my copy of Addie LaRue and getting the limited edition of A Darker Shade of Magic.
At 2.30 pm Victoria got interviewed by Melissa Giardina from Vindetta! and that took about an hour. The interview itself was very interesting, and I felt like we got to really get to know Victoria. She was really open and honest, and I was hanging on to her every word. I was struggling a bit in the beginning of the interview though because I felt like the interviewer was intervening one too many times. I get that she wanted to keep the conversation going and reply to what Victoria was saying, but sometimes Victoria got cut off.
Victoria talked about her views on reading and writing, where her ideas come from, and even talked very shortly about her upcoming projects. Everything she said was spoiler-free of course, haha.
Q&A
After the interview, there was a little Q&A of 20 minutes. However, it was not your standard Q&A. If you had a question for Victoria, you had to email it to the organisation. There was a tight deadline for the questions, people had to submit them by the 31st of August, which was like 18 days before the event itself.
I sadly forgot to send in a question, which sucked since 5 lucky people got to ask their questions on stage directly to Victoria! They also received the new Dutch limited edition of A Darker Shade of Magic.
I think two of the questions were good questions, but the other ones weren’t all that interesting. Victoria does however elaborate on everything which made every question still interesting in the end. She truly is so talented.
Book signing
Since there were a lot of fans present for the event (and rightfully so) the line for the book signing was pretty long. However, the organisation promised Victoria would sign all our books so my friend and I decided to just wait and drink a nice cup of tea.
When we rejoined the line, a lot of people were gone already. I think the signing was planned to take one hour, but took two. I was one of the last people to get my books signed and talk to her and oh my god I actually had a blackout. Not only did I completely forget what I intended to say to her because of the stress, but I ended up making some silly small talk. I feel really sad because I wanted to tell Victoria how much Addie LaRue means to me, but I also feel very fortunate to have had the chance to see her and even talk to her.
I also got some amazing pictures with her and even a group photo with some bookstagram friends! I can’t wait to see her and other authors like her again in Belgium one day.
heavenlybookish 