The rustle of Wings

A bookstore is the closest thing to home for me. Walking in to one is as refreshing as falling asleep in front of a fireplace or waking on a rainy afternoon. Today, as I was greeted by the lifelong friend of a bouquet of pages old and new, I stopped to see a stand that read:

Friday, Reading and Signing.
May 8th, 7:00 pm.
Wings by Aprilynne Pike.

I dug my hand inside my coat and checked my cell. It is the eighth. And it was 6 o'clock. I figured, why not, it'll be fun to go to one of these. Plus, it will give me some insight.


This Borders was among my favorites. Located in Lagrange, right next to some railroad tracks. I love how big it is. Upstairs, near the cafe, is where the event would take place.


Had my laptop but the wifi wasn't working, so I decided to read. I got about 40 pages into The Road, by Cormac McCarthy.

Ten minutes to the hour, I sat down, expecting a big crowd. There were only eight of us, myself included. From the front cover there was a blurb from Stephenie Meyer. Could this Aprilynne be the next big thing?

She came out, smiling. She told us of how she loved writing. "In my experience, people say that a writer gets his/her second book that he/she writes published. For me, it was my fourth." She wrote the book while seven months pregnant and finished it in six weeks, which, she laments, "No author should ever do. I don't recommend it. It takes some authors anywhere from one month to ten years to write a book. The average is nine months." She read from page 102, where the strange thing that is happening to Laurel, the main character, is being analyzed by her friend who is helping her with biology. What started as a bump on her back, which Laurel dismissed as a zit, become full-blown petals for wings. The discovery that her friend makes, while looking at her cells under a microscope is that she does not have humans cells . . . she has plant cells. The whole segment puts a new spin on the faerie world. Aprilynne shared with us how her book went through three seperate, vividly different cover designs before settling on the petals. I like the subtlety of it. This book will be part of a series that I'm sure will pick up speed. There will be a book out every May. She closes by saying, "As a first time author, you can't believe that your book turns into print form. You begin to think that it's a big joke. I remember, I went to my borders which is just a couple of blocks away from my house and I saw it sitting on the shelf and thought, ' oh my god. There it is.' But then I thought, 'oh that's just the one that they put close by me, it's probably not anywhere else.'" But it was. She has already done signings in New York and L.A. and plans to stick to the genre that she loves so much.

I was a bit dissapointed that I couldn't buy a book for her to sign, but the experience was well worth the half hour I spent listening to her express her joy of being a published writer. Three of us stayed a while to ask additional questions. One woman couldn't wait to start reading, after just having read the Twilight saga, and another short girl with dark hair and glasses talked to Aprilynne on how she was working on her novel and that she was taking creative writing classes. They talked about a site called www.absolutewrite.com which is a writers forum of some kind. I plan to take a look when I get the chance.


"So, all these writers just go on there to talk?" I asked.

Aprilynne turned to me, "Yeah. It's the greatest. Are you a writer?"

I smirk a little. "Trying to be."

"Well, you'll love it." she says.

With that, I said it was a pleasure to meet her and left. Y'know, I think I'll go to these more often.


"Aprilynne Pike's Wings is a remarkable debut; the ingenuity of the mythology is matched only by the startling loveliness with which the story unfolds." ~ Stephenie Meyer.