Meeting Lauren Oliver

by Kaye Leong, Junior 1 Higgs, Class of 2015

Friday, the 21st of March 2014 has officially made it into my personal list of “Favourite Days in the Year 2014”. It was the day I had the once-in-a-lifetime chance to meet my New York Times Bestselling Author, the one and only Laura Suzanne Schechter, otherwise known as Lauren Oliver. A proud owner of 5 out of 6 of her young adult books - namely Before I Fall, Delirium, Pandemonium, Requiem and Panic - I think it’s needless to say that she’s my all-time favourite author. 

Around 20 of us exhilaratingly boarded the bus to Mid Valley after Puan Farah bid us goodbye and told us to have fun. After about half an hour or less I descended the bus with a big smile on my face - that shows how thrilled I was to meet Lauren Oliver.

Soon after lunch, we made our way to MPH Bookstores. The minute we reached there, we were greeted by Ms Julia, who was one of the organizers of this event. We settled down on the row of chairs which were orderly arranged close by the entrance of the bookstore. After a few minutes, Ms Luna – my English teacher and I – had a little trip to the toilet. While walking back to the bookstore, I did not realize that Lauren Oliver herself was behind us until I got into my seat in the bookstore. 

She made an entrance at the bookstore with a very loud and enthusiastic “Hello!”. The meet and greet session started as always, with an introduction by herself. It was quite interesting as she made me feel like she was one of us – a teenager. She started writing at a very young age of just nine years old. She also talked about how she grew up in a house that was filled with all kinds of books. Apparently, her parents are both literature lecturers – that explains why she used to live in a book-filled house. Other than being a literature lecturer, her father is also a renowned thriller and horror story writer who goes by the name Harold Schechter.

After telling us a little about her family, she talked about how her writing career started. When she was a teenager, she had a strong passion of reading. As everyone may know, most books end with cliff hangers which force you to keep imagining what would happen after the last chapter of the book closes. Having a creative little mind, young Lauren would write fan fictions of the book she has just read instead of keeping those lingering thoughts in her mind. As a teenager, she would write funny magazines for her best friend, Jackie which were made up of different columns such as horoscopes, embarrassing stories, and so on. 

While she was still pursuing her studies, she started working at the well known company, Penguin Books in the young adult division which was called Razorbill. That was when she started working on her first book, Before I Fall. Then she gave brief descriptions of what all her books were about. 

Having attended the meet and greet session. we were fortunate enough to have the chance to know what her upcoming books were about. One of the books is her first-ever adult book, known as Rooms, which will be released in Fall 2014 (around September 2014). It will be about an affluent man who had died which caused his house to be inhabited by ghosts. The other book is called Vanishing Girls, which is about two sisters who meet in a car accident and get separated. She may have only told us very small snippets of the two books but being one of the first to know - definitely a plus. 

After the whole book-introduction part of the day, the signing session started. I joined the queue to get all five of my books autographed by her. When it was my turn, I stood there timidly while gazing at her signing my books and writing sweet messages on each and everyone of them. She was benevolent enough to allow me to take a picture with her after signing my books. 

Photo Credit : Kaye Leong

Last but not least, I would like to thank Ms Julia for inviting us for this not-to-be-forgotten event, Ms Luna, Ms Lina and Ms Helen for being our teacher chaperones and most importantly Lauren Oliver for coming all the way to Malaysia for this event.