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>> Redwall by Brian Jacques, it was this big thing for
us to read it as a family so there's a whole lot of memories there, but
also I started writing after I started reading Redwall.
My first stories were Redwall knock-offs, and I don't know that I would have
become an author if I hadn't been reading those books and been so inspired by them.
>> I'm gonna reach way back and say Black Beauty by Anna Sewell.
And I am thankful for that book because it taught me that you should always be
kind to animals because they have feelings and emotions, and
will totally talk about you behind your back.
>> The book I'm most thankful for is Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson,
because that was the book that got me into writing when I was 13 or 14.
>> The book that I'm most thankful for is The Lymond Chronicles and
The Niccolo series by my favorite author, Dorothy Dunnett.
Lymond in particular has a bisexual protagonist, and
that kind of representation meant a lot to me when I was growing up.
Dunnett just has such an incredible technical proficiency.
She writes in a way that no other writer writes and I've learned so
much from reading, rereading, and studying her books.
>> Definitely The Secret History by Donna Tartt.
Murder, an elite eccentric group of college students in the woods
studying classics, it's basically my security blanket.
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>> Why, why are you making us choose?
I'm gonna say Kiersten White.
Kiersten is a new author friend, more of an author acquaintance, but she has just
been so randomly kind and generous this year, which is something that I've needed.
So I'm thankful for Kiersten White.
>> I'm grateful to have met the author Anna Cowan,
the writer of a novel called Untamed.
I met Anna at university, and for a long time while I was writing my first book,
she and I used to go every day to the state library and
write our manuscripts together.
And that was a time when I was still learning and growing as a writer and
it was so magical and important to me to have a friend that I could go
through that set of experiences with.
So, Anna, thank you so much for being my friend and coming into my life.
>> I'm really grateful that I met Kip Wilson, who is the author
of White Rose and the forthcoming, The Most Dazzling Girl in Berlin.
Kip and I met a few years ago actually in Berlin and
she has helped me tremendously with writing historical fiction and
she's honestly just a really great person and super nice.
>> I'm grateful for my friend Sara Davis who writes literary mystery novels.
Sara and I met in grad school and have been reading and
critiquing each other's work ever since.
Sara is one of those rare people who can unearth a nugget of what I'm trying
to say, even when it's buried under three paragraphs of complete garbage.
[LAUGH] Sara is also an incredible writer and
reading her work always inspires me to write.
Sara, if you're seeing this, thank you for reading my garbage.
>> I'm grateful to have so many author friends who have been so supportive.
I think in particular, Natalie C Parker,
who's the author of the Seafire trilogy is just incredible at building community and
collecting authors into groups where we can find community with each other.
And she and her wife, Tessa Gratton,
have just been absolutely instrumental in terms of mentorship and
guidance and helping me become the author that I am today.
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>> I think Corinne from Who I Was With Her would be most thankful for her cat, Fish.
[LAUGH] And I think that Charlie from my forthcoming historical book
would be most thankful for jazz music and for her best friend Geli.
>> My character Will from the novel Dark Rise is grateful for his friends.
He did not necessarily have a lot of unconditional love growing up,
so it means a lot to him when people believe and have faith in him.
>> My character Xia is a teen programmer, so I think she's most grateful for
keyboard shortcuts and online messaging forums.
But she also really hates the winter and is from Massachusetts, so
she's super grateful to be in California, at least at first.
>> Alyssa Farshot would say that she is grateful for bacon, egg, and
cheese sandwiches, but honestly the one thing that she is the most grateful for
or thankful for is Hell Monkey.
Who is always there, even when she's being a disaster,
which is pretty much all the time.
>> In All These Bodies, accused murderess Marie Catherine Hale is thankful for
Michael, her confessor,
because he is the perfect person to tell her murderous story to.
And as for Michael, he's probably just grateful for the bars that separate them.
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>> I'm Australian, we don't celebrate Thanksgiving, but
I love the idea of a holiday where you stop to think about all of
the things that you're thankful for.
However, with Christmas and Thanksgiving, I find it strange
that you have two poultry related holidays so close together.
>> Okay, so the easy answer would be stuffing, definitely stuffing,
in particular Chinese sticky rice stuffing which is basically an excuse to
eat dim sum for dinner.
But, if I'm being honest, my favorite part about Thanksgiving is
that it signals the start of Christmas season, and
makes it socially acceptable to listen to Christmas music,
which I secretly do year round, don't tell anyone.
>> My favorite thing about Thanksgiving is the sounds of Thanksgiving in my family.
I have a very big extended family, they're noisy and we all talk over each other and
play Euchre very loudly, and then that hum of football games on in the background.
All of that sound and noise really sort of signifies home and the holidays for me.
>> Actually, it's not even the turkey,
I just couldn't find a hat that was made up of all side dishes.
>> So I hate to say it but my favorite Thanksgiving food is actually
the jelly cranberry sauce that comes in a can.
When you pour it out of the can it still looks [LAUGH] like a can.
I know a lot of people think it's gross but
I actually think it's really weirdly tasty.
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>> I'm thankful when anyone reads any of my books.
I think the most meaningful responses, the ones that I have been the most
thankful for have been ones where people read something that I've written and
they feel a little freer to be themselves in their actual life.
Everything that I write boils down to a main character finally giving
themselves some kind of permission to be a truer version of themself.
It's something that I really struggle with in my real life and I really struggled
with as a teen, that they felt like they had permission to be angry for
the first time about something that was hurtful.
Or they felt permission to come out as non-binary, because they read The Mermaid,
the Witch, and the Sea and they saw a non-binary character in that book and
felt like they saw themselves for the first time.
I am so thankful for readers, but I'm especially thankful for
the ones who feel like they take away the sort of secret heart of everything
that I write and take it with them into their life.
>> I loved hearing from teen programmers who were so
happy to see themselves represented as the main character in a book and
not just a hacker and a heist story going like this in a van.
[LAUGH] And I also really liked hearing from women in STEM who read the book and
said that they wished they had it when they were a teen.
That was really cool.
>> I'm honestly grateful for any and all reader reactions,
but it is particularly meaningful when readers reach out to me and
let me know that my books have meant something to them in difficult times.
I have had readers who have told me that at their lowest points in life,
my books have given them a reason to keep going.
And I've had readers who have told me that my books have
been a doorway through which they've been able to walk
into a better set of life experiences for themselves.
So knowing that my book has meant something
like that to someone, means the world to me.
>> Absolutely, I love hearing from readers,
especially readers of Who I Was With Her.
Because I really like hearing from people who say that Corrine's story helped them.
Either help them with grief or help them figure out they were bi, or
any other things.
That always is really, really good for me to hear.
I especially love hearing from other small town queer people, as well,
since that book is also kind of my love letter to growing up in North Carolina.
On a different note, I do deeply enjoy when readers say I made them cry.
It is a really good feeling for me [LAUGH] >> I'm really thankful for so
many of the readers and the feedback that the Crownchaser duology has gotten.
I think in particular Lili of Utopia State of Mind wrote an early review
that pointed out themes that I definitely was writing about without
even really knowing that that was something I was writing about.
And Kibby Robinson from The Nerd Daily who called it a love
letter to science fiction, which it absolutely is.
>> I am thankful for any reader reaction, from a sigh to a scream,
I am just thankful that anybody's reading my books, so, thank you.
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