Sunday, June 24, 2012

Auditorium Speaker: Chris Colfer

Chris Colfer is probably best known for being an actor off of the television series Glee, and if you don't know him from that then you must live under a rock in the middle of Antarctica because even my dad would be able to recognize him. Anyway, Chris has written a middle grade book called The Land of Stories which is due out on July 17th and is the first in a series. It's the story of twins that find themselves in a land where fairy tales are real.

First off I would like to state that Chris Colfer is absurdly adorable and charismatic. He started his talk by questioning why we were all sitting in the conference center when we as a group could be storming Disneyland, because obviously Disney wouldn't want the bad publicity of arresting a thousand librarians and Chris Colfer. It'd be only one step above beating a baby seal. Hilarious and completely had us all sucked in. Chris went on to describe his relationship with the library and librarians. His stories about his love of the libraries weren't contrived, but felt very natural and adorable.

After getting us all primed, he went on to explain how he had developed this story from a very young age and that it really was born of his own inquisitiveness and the need to understand the details of fairy tales. This was also a coping mechanism for him during his sister's illness and allowed an escape into his own imagination at an early age. I was really impressed with the fact that Chris fully acknowledged the fact that his fame with Glee opened doors that allowed him the opportunity to write this book; I was also super happy to hear that instead of taking the easy route and writing an autobiography at the age of twenty he instead decided to develop a project that was near and dear to him. I find that exceptionally brave.

Chris was involved with each aspect of the book. He was in constant contact with Brandon Dorman, he illustrator, making sure that the book was always a true reflection of what he envisioned it to be. He was very explicit that he did NOT use a ghostwriter, and that this was a project that was a long time in development for him.

He was quite engaging, I'm super psyched to read the book. We're doing a short giveaway where Chris's book is up for grabs so make sure you put your name in before 7pm PST June 24th.

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