This evening was a nice treat for my husband and me as we whisked our 5 month old son out of the house for a few hours to go to the next city over to the Barnes and Noble.  We had put this on our calendar a month or two ago and thankfully I remembered it before falling asleep last night.  So, my husband got home from work and we packed Jackson up and headed over to the Barnes and Noble in Citrus Heights.

Upon walking in I was afraid that we weren’t going to get to the front of the line any time soon, but that worry was apparently foolish.  A moment after we walked into the store an employee asked if we were there for the signing and said that due to us having a little one in a stroller we would be able to bypass the line.  We weren’t sure if she was joking or not, but after grabbing a couple of books to have signed (we forgot to grab them while at home and there was a book we had never seen of his out on display), we went to find the back of the line.

Just as we got comfy to go through the line a man in a red shirt (don’t go on any missions!) came up to us and told us to follow him.  He zigged and zagged through the line and I embarrassingly apologized every step of the way for going through these cramped books shelves full of people waiting in line.  At least one person said to not be sorry and said that I had enough to deal with besides being sorry for having to do what I needed to do, but I still felt bad.

We finally got to the end of the shelves and out to an open area that we could bypass the rest of the line.  We were told to wait next to the front of the line and when the person asked for next we were told to go ahead.

Brandon Sanderson is quite nice on his Facebook page and actually answers questions when you post.  So, I was curious how he would be in the real world.  He was just as nice if not nicer.  We walked up and he first off thanked us for showing up at all.  I told him I did book reviews and gave him a card and he actually looked at it and looked very interested.  When he was done signing the books he pointedly asked if we had any questions and since I hadn’t been planning on writing anything I hadn’t thought of any.

However, my husband and I had talked about a few things in the cars and he asked the question that brought an answer I would never have guessed.  My husband’s question was, “When did you start writing?”  In the car we had meant when had he begun the first book that was then published and he was known for, but he took it as in general when. His answer was that he had begun writing when he was 14 years old, but didn’t write his first novel until he was 19.  He joked that he was not like some of these other authors who began writing when they were 4 years old.  My thought at the time was, dang, I still haven’t produced anything yet.  The next part of his answer was the part that really surprised me, though, he continued his answer with the fact that he didn’t particularly like to read until he was in his teens.  For some reason this shocked me as with well as he writes, and especially in the Fantasy/Sci-Fi genre, he had a great handle on how to produce a wonderful, entertaining book.  I told him just that and he thanked me.

It was a wonderful experience and I would love to get to know him better.  I hope he does like my page at some point and perhaps in the future he and I can work on something together, even if it is just a simple interview.

It is always a pleasure to meet someone who has the same dreams and hopes as you might have. It is especially wonderful to find someone who has been able to accomplish some of those dreams. The author of Sacramento Fantasy Literature Examiner has been given the opportunity for an interview of one such author and while that interview is put together here is a small taste of who this wonderful author is and what he has accomplished.


Jeremy Tarr is a writer who came out with his debut book in January of this year, entitled (S)mythology. Described as “Charming, poignant and absurdly funny, (S)mythology is a contemporary fairy-tale that whisks you on a wild adventure from the streets of London to the far reaches of the globe from haunted islands to African villages, from the peaks of the Alps to the depths of the Underworld.” The style of writing is reminiscent of when stories were told to one another rather than read. Action moves quickly and whisks you away into the story and into the life of one Ms. Sophie. A twenty-one year old who has her life turned on its head when her adoptive father dies suddenly and she had not stepped foot out of the house she had grown up in within the past sixteen years.

Mr. Tarr will be in Sacramento and Davis come July 30, 2011 for book signings. The interview will be posted here about who and what makes Jeremy Tarr, the writer, tick in the very near future. Subscribe to this authors posts to keep up to date on local Fantasy writers and books.


Sacramento Book Signing
Date: July 30, 2011
Time: 4:00p – 5:30p
Where: The Avid Reader at the Tower
1600 Broadway, Sacramento
Telephone: 916-441-4400


Davis Book Signing
Date: July 30, 2011
Time: 7:30p
Where: The Avid Reader
617 Second Street, Davis
Telephone: 530-758-4040