This last Monday, I went to downtown Naperville, IL (a small pleasantville-like community where it actually feels safe to walk around at night) with a friend to an author reading at a local bookstore. I had never heard of the author but figured it was something new and a nice night to walk around town. The author was Carrie Ryan, author of "The Forest of Hands and Feet" and a sequel book called "The Dead-Tossed Waves." Both books are based on post-apocalytic worlds where a contained society exists within barracaded walls and zombies exists outside the walls. This books seems to be building a following and has been recently added to the New York Times Bestseller list.
I've never been to an author reading before so I wasn't sure what to expect. But as soon as Carrie Ryan began speaking, I immediately liked her. She talked about how scared she was of scary movies until she was forced to go to see the "Dawn of the Dead" remake with her boyfriend and fell in love with zombies. Her passion for writing continued and even after going through everything that law school makes you go through, she knew that a career in law wasn't for her. So she set out to write with a 10 year plan....if she didn't make it happen in 10 years, she would give it up. However, her writing found an audience and there she was tonight...doing what she loved and answering questions -- most of them about zombies. The one thing that really made me liked her was the fact that even though she went to law school and got a degree, once she knew that law wasn't for her, she allowed herself to change her course....it would be hard not to feel obligated to follow the original plan. But she knew what her passion was and went with it and you could tell she was happy....that she was proud of her work and loved what she had done and what she will do (she's in the revision process of her third book). Needless to say, I bought her first book. She sold me.
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