A Day with Shay

The best things in life are often unexpected. 2010 will go down as my favorite Halloween weekend on record because I was surrounded by family and friends at the Nightshade release party. I'll do full-party blogging soon (I'm waiting on all the pictures to come in), but I wanted to do a Halloween post about joyful surprises.

I was shocked by the number of people who drove long distances to come to party. Dear, dear friends came to surprise me including my high school English teacher, Mrs. Heisler, who always encouraged my writing dreams.

One of the best surprises of this entire experience, however, have been the new and wonderful friendships I've made through Nightshade. My awesome teams at InkWell and Penguin - the amazing YA authors I've met at conferences. And then there's Shay.
Actually he's Will Browning - the actor who brought Shay to life in the Shadow Days webisodes. Getting to know Will has been awesome because not only is he incredibly talented, he's also one of the loveliest people I've ever met.

I was honored that he came all the way from Florida to attend the Nightshade party. And (bonus!) he spent the weekend hanging out with my family and friends.

We took a tour of Minneapolis and St. Paul highlights and he took lots of pictures.

We carved pumpkins
and named them Bateman and Sebastian.
And he stayed up until 3 a.m. with me watching Labyrinth.
As an author, I thought there could be nothing better than having a talented actor portray one of my characters. I was wrong. What's even better is meeting a kindred spirit and making a friend for life.

Thanks for everything, Will!

Wishing all of you a Happy Halloween full of more treats than tricks!

And a huge thanks to DJ for sending me a picture of his pumpkin! Yay!!!