Author Meet & Greet: Sue Grafton

Last night, I went to another author event – this time with Sue Grafton, who is the author of the Kinsey Millhone series, or as they are probably better known – the alphabet series! She is currently on tour with the release of her newest book, W is for Wasted. 

I have to admit that I’ve only read the first 5 books in the series – A through E, so I obviously have a lot of catching up to do and won’t be getting to this book soon, but didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to go to the signing. I figure having the book on my shelf might give me a little extra motivation to get reading!

Sue Grafton is very personable and charming. She was just scheduled to do a book signing, but because she arrived early, she decided to do a little chat first. She began by telling us about her travels and how she’s been all over since the release of W is for Wasted on September 10. 

She then talked about the books. She told us that she’s not sure what is going to happen once she gets to Z, which at the way it’s gone with the past few books, will be in about 6 years (it’s been taking her about 2 years per book). If she feels there’s still room to go on, she will continue, but if she feel’s the series has been played out, then she will stop.

Someone asked how she came up with the idea to use the alphabet in her titles. When she decided to become a writer, she knew that if she was going to write a series, she would want the titles to link together somehow. This way the readers knew the books went together. She actually got the idea for using the alphabet from reading  The Gashlycrumb Tinies, a book of cartoons by Edward Gorey, which is a
series of pen and ink drawings of little Victorian children who all have accidents that befall them …”A is for Amy who fell down the stairs…B is for Basil
assaulted by Bears, etc.” After reading that book, she sat down and made an alphabetical list of all the crime words she could come up with and soon the series was born.

She told us she has refused to sell the movie/television rights to her books and even went so far as to tell her children she will haunt them if they sell the rights after she dies. How funny!!! She just doesn’t want to see any changes take place. I applaud her for sticking to her guns on this!

Then she shared with us her latest purchase – she got herself a Fitbit! She asked if anyone knew what it was, and of course, I raised my hand because I have one, too! She said she loves the badges that you get after hitting certain milestones – they seem to be motivating her to get her 10,000 steps in each day!

I had such a great night and loved that as she was signing the books, Sue actually took time to chat with each person. She remembered that I was the one with the Fitbit, so we chatted about that among other things. I am definitely looking forward to reading these books and might just start over since it’s been so long since I read those first 5 books. 

Laughing about our obsession with our Fitbits!