Dreadlock Girl’s visit to a Powell’s Books Author Event: Luis Alberto Urrea!!

Even though June was one of the craziest months for us ever, I couldn't handle not heading  to Powell's to see an author. And the choice was hard, last month they had Carlos Ruiz Zafon, David Sedaris, Lisa See, among many other equally exciting authors. However, after having twittered with them for months, I just had to choose Luis Alberto Urrea and his lovely wife and kids at the Powell's Books event on his tour to promote Into the Beautiful North. I warned them that I was a tad bit shy in person and they promised to be cuddly and they most certainly were. In all honesty I have never met an author like Luis Urrea, he was kind, attentive and he captured the audience with such ease, as he is just as good at public speaking as he is at writing. I loved him from the minute I saw him, and it was easy to see everyone else there did too. He was swarmed at the end, and he spent time meeting every person individually that wanted to talk or had questions.

Beyond how amazing of a public speaker, storyteller and writer Luis Urrea is, what I most enjoyed was seeing how personable he was with his adoring fans, and with his family. He is a real person, and I loved meeting him!!

When he explained his journey to writing Into the Beautiful North, what stood out to me the most was how he used bits and pieces of his family members, his friends, and people he has grown to admire or fear. Each character is based on someone, someone that has impacted Urrea's life and by sharing those characters with us, he shares them with his readers giving us segments of them as we read. And after finishing Into the Beautiful North I can say that it really works, by making them hold a hint of a real-life person, they become real, they are real.

What is he up to now? You want the full dish? He informed the peeps there that his book Hummingbird's Daughter is going to be made into a film, it is already on its way, and will start filming in January. Also he is working on a sequel to The Hummingbird's Daughter, so keep your eyes open for it.

Urrea is full of surprises and great ones at that!

For more bookie pictures go to my flickr album: All things BOOK related

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