wow wow wow, what a great experience to meet someone you idolize so much and connect with them as a fellow human. It was great!!!De Lint is funny, honest, and enchanting, just like his books. He read from his new book (the young adult one) and then had a sweet Q & A where all sorts of great ?'s were asked and then book signing too!!! It was so great~ and so fun to meet you Baubo!!! You have such a beautiful and carefree happy vibration!! Some of the interesting things talked about were about how he creates his characters and stories. Like many authors I enjoy he says he meets these characters in his mind & imagination-much the same as we would meet anyone on the street-and gets to know them as the book is written. And he doesn't really have ideas of what will happen in the story but rather he said it's like he's reading the book except really slowly...that the characters just take him through it.

I asked if he'd ever had an unexplained or magical experiences that prompted him to embark on writing fantasy and he said that he was a believer but also a skeptic. That he believes such things could happen but they haven't happened to him. In discussing this with my roommate afterward, we decided that he likely was having shamanic journeys maybe in the dreamstate or something and bringing those experiences into this world through his books. Anyways, it was awesome!!!

P.S. I heard Terry Prachett was also coming to Powell's on Sept 26th...if you like him too