Hi, I'm Kiera Cass, best-selling author of The Selection series,
which is turning ten years old this year.
I do not believe that it's physically possible, but
everybody's telling me it's true so I'm gonna roll with it.
Let's just take a moment and look back on the series.
[MUSIC]
Kinda like that?
Because, again,
it doesn't feel like it's possible [LAUGH] that all this has happened in ten years.
So many books and touring and letters and just so much stuff.
It just doesn't feel like it could possibly happen in ten years, but
it has and so it's still just disbelief, it feels too fast.
[MUSIC]
One of the first things that comes to mind when I think about The Selection is my
kitchen table in my house on Courtney Circle,
because that's where I wrote most of it.
Just there, Guyden, my son, playing on the floor and writing it by hand,
first, in a notebook that had a chandelier on the cover.
And then later in the day, I would go and take what I'd written in the notebook and
I'd type it up and it would grow.
And it was really cool to see how that happened and
I remember having to be patient because I wrote it the wrong way first.
I was making a lot of decisions for America and I remember getting to the end
when I finally knew her and realizing I had to do it again.
So unfortunately that is still my process.
I wish that was not the case, I wish that I did not have to wait for
them to tell me everything, I wish I had more control, but no, no,
it's been like that from the beginning, I'm afraid.
[MUSIC]
How did it change my life?
How did it not change my life?
I am so very average [LAUGH] and from a small town and
not exciting I think in any way [LAUGH].
But I got to do so many incredible things and meet beautiful, wonderful people.
I got to have a career that some people would just kill for.
But I did not do that on my own, there's a team behind me making it happen,
books don't just magically appear on shelves.
And then also, a partnership with readers.
I can't make them pick up a book, I can't make you excited about a book,
the fact that you were, that's you, so thanks.
[MUSIC]
The first time I've ever left the country at all was to go
to the Philippines for a book tour.
And I remember pulling up to the first event in the car
with Callaway and I step out and I see a horde of people and
security guards linking arms holding them back.
And it took me a very long time to process that that was for me.
That that many people showed up with that much excitement for a thing that I made.
[MUSIC]
On the book side, there's a reason I don't read them once they're published,
because all I see are my shortcomings.
I could always be doing better, I could always be growing.
And as far as the experience side goes, it was crazy for a couple of years there.
More intense, I think, than any of us thought that it could be.
And maybe while I took on a little too much, it was such a brief window that I
don't think I would undo it, I don't think I would wish any of it any differently.
When I look back, even though it was a wild season, all I feel now is gratitude.
Because, again, I know that this is a career that so
many people wish they could have, just a moment where it feels like so many people
are connecting with something that you created, I wouldn't change a thing.
Okay, so in honor of the tenth anniversary of The Selection,
I'm gonna be sharing my top ten moments from across this series with you guys.
So number 1 is from The Selection when America tells Maxon that it's possible.
It gives me Pride and Prejudice vibes when Mr. Darcy's like "you've given me hope".
I just think, hope and possibility,
those might be the most romantic things in the world.
Number 2, also from The Selection,
is when America tells Aspen I'm not choosing him or you, I'm choosing me.
I wish I could take more credit for some of these lines because I remember just
typing that and that came out and I was like, mama, okay?
I was just really proud of her because across the series she is indecisive,
she doesn't know what she wants yet and she's kind of timid about things and
not so timid about others.
But in that moment, she was very much like,
the situation that I'm in, I had no control over.
But what I'm going to do with it, I do, and I love that about her, loved it.
Number 3 is from The Elite when Maxon brings back Halloween for
America, just casually resurrects a holiday for his girl, love it.
And number 4 goes hand in hand with that because he was prepared
to propose dressed as a pirate, he was ready.
Number 5 is from The One and
it's basically the entirety of Aspen's character.
He's still sort of growing here and interacting with America even though
he knows he's losing her and he's starting to develop feelings for
somebody else and he can see her and Maxon together, and
I think is in a way rooting for them but still not over her, it's hard.
And then realizing, I think, that he likes Maxon as a person and
then trying to re-define what he thinks it is to be a man.
So much is happening to him in that book, people asked for the stories again
from Maxon's perspective, I would love more of Aspen's cuz I love him.
Number 6, also from The One, is when Maxon and America are looking at his wall
of photographs and she realizes that if he had a choice in life, he'd be a five.
It's just this sense of equality and
I think it comes up in a lot of my books, with couples in particular.
And I really just love that moment there, that if he could choose,
they'd be on the exact same plane.
Number 7 is from the epilogue, from after The One at Maxon's birthday
party when Maxon and Aspen are just having a little chat, it's just sweet.
And when I tell you that they're still in my head and that the bromance is real and
that they super love each other, I cannot, just, I love it.
Number 8 is from The Heir when Eadlyn is meeting her suitors,
that whole moment, that whole, I love it.
Cuz you have quiet, protective Aspen kinda hanging out and then these boys
rolling through and she's just shutting them down [LAUGH] one after one.
Kile comes in and he's super sassy but kind of friendly, and
then you get to Henri and Eikko and she's like, what do I even do with this,
it's just super chaotic and I kind of love it [LAUGH].
Number 9 is from The Crown.
Henri's sister is named Annika and I was not done with that name,
I loved it too much, so that's the name of my girl in A Thousand Heartbeats.
And number 10, from The Crown is the epilogue,
the sense that life goes on, cuz it very much does.
This family, this group of people, these friends, they're still there and
their lives are still happening beyond what's on the page and
I just really liked that sense of it just going on and on.
[MUSIC]
Honestly, I'm so honored.
And when I sat down to write it,
I knew that I wasn't making anything groundbreaking or deeply philosophical.
I just was writing a love story.
But to find that people find characters that they resonate with, or
themes that I did not even intentionally put in the book, but they've,
as clever readers, have drawn out of it, that's wonderful.
And for people to still be finding it ten years later,
it gives me hope that it can be found another ten years after this.
And what a privilege that is to be the person who wrote the book that somebody
quotes without thinking, your favorite book when you were a teenager,
your favorite book now.
That is no small thing and it is not lost on me.
And also, I just wanna say thank you.
There have been some really crazy times in these last ten years,
ones I certainly was not prepared for, and I don't know what the next ten look like.
But thank you so much for the joy of being a part of your life.
Of being the person who made the book that you wanted to go and hide in for
a little while.
To be the person who made the book that comforted you on a bad day.
[LAUGH] And on that note, if you have any special moments from reading the books or
sharing them with a friend, please drop them in the comments below.
I would love, love to see anything that you have to say about the series and
thank you so much.
Love you always, bye.