Leigh Bardugo Event Recap

On Monday I got to meet the fabulous Leigh Bardugo! She was in DC for her Magic & Mayhem tour promoting Six of Crows, her newest book about an elaborate heist set in the Grishaverse. Don't know what the Grishaverse is? You must read Shadow & Bone! It's a fantasy novel about a Russian-esque world with "normal" humans and Grisha, magic-wielders. The nations of this world each view Grisha differently. One regards them with the highest esteem, another vehemently hates them, thinking they're unnatural. And still another serves as a refuge for those Grisha who don't want to be used by Ravka and don't want to be put to death in Fjerda.

Six of Crows, while set in the same world, is an all new story about a group of kids who haven't had the easiest lives. Their circumstances have led them to do some unsavory things and now they must work together to pull off the biggest heist in history. For more about the book, you can check out my review. 

The event was at Politics and Prose, a local DC bookstore that's amazing. They host a ton of YA author events around here and they're just fantastic. They're always well organized and super helpful and I love the bookstore. It feels like a cute hole-in-the-wall type place that I want to spend hours just hanging out in. If you live in DC and have never visited, you should. It's on Connecticut Avenue in Northwest. 

The event started with a moderator asking Leigh some questions. We touched on everything from her inspiration for Six of Crows to the difficulties of being a female, YA author. Leigh has some great insight and she was seriously hysterical. I really enjoyed the questions about being an author of YA and the difficulties she's faced because of it. I've never thought about it from the author's POV before, but as a reader, I get a lot of grief for reading YA. Don't we all? We've all had that one person give you that judgmental stare when you tell them you read YA. Now imagine getting that feeling as an author. Imagine people acting like you're not really a writer because you write "that sappy YA crap". Ugh. But Leigh talked about how she lets it roll right off her shoulders and how she thinks, slowly, things are changing. Let's be honest, YA is a huge market and Leigh talked about how people hate on it because it's threatening. Everyone panics because this giant, booming market threatens their own books. Hopefully one day, we can co-exist together peacefully, but right now we're the big scary giants coming in to steal away the customers. 

In regards to the actual book, Leigh talked about her inspiration for Six of Crows. She said much of her inspiration for the setting came from 17th century Holland which surprised me. And Ketterdam, the main city we see in the book, is based on Amesterdam with "a lot of Vegas" in there. And as she was talking, I could definitely see that. You have the pleasure district, the gambling halls, the bustling nightlife. Definitely getting that vibe, Leigh. 

Leigh also talked a bit about her writing process, saying that she doesn't really flesh too much out before writing. The first draft of Six of Crows was 30,000 words long. The final is 130,000 words. Once she had the words down she went back and expanded on her world, her characters and her plot to grow the novel which I thought was interesting. I hear a lot of authors saying that they cut stuff during revisions, but Leigh adds things. 

We also discussed Kaz, one of the main characters, who has a disability. He uses a cane to walk. For those of you who don't follow Leigh on social media, she posted the other day about a degenerative condition she has that makes it very painful to walk. Because of this, she has to use a cane. She talked about how that inspired her to write Kaz. She wanted to create a character with a disability that people wouldn't pity when they saw on the street. She wanted Kaz to be powerful, in spite of that disability. She said something along the lines of "If I'm going to be a cripple, I'm going to be a badass cripple" (not her exact words, I didn't write them down), which had me cracking up. 

We didn't talk too much about the Grisha trilogy, but she did reveal that her initial plan was to kill Nikolai off in Siege & Storm. An audible gasp went through the crowd when she dropped that bomb. Thank god she didn't because who doesn't love Nikolai?? That would have been devastating. 

Overall, the event was amazing! I loved listening to Leigh talk. She was insightful, personable and hilarious. She took the time to talk to every one of her fans as they came up to the signing table and I really appreciated that. I'm so happy I got to meet her and I hope to see her again someday! 

Have you read either The Grisha trilogy or Six of Crows? Did you get the Amsterdam/Vegas vibe from Six of Crows? Have you had the opportunity to meet Leigh? Isn't she amazing?