AAD NOLA Author Spotlight: Melanie Card

Thank you Tori for inviting me to guest blog today. Only five months to go until Authors After Dark, so for this post I decided to think about the things that excited me about the conference and New Orleans. And there are so many of them!

I can’t wait to meet new people—even though I can be quite shy—and to try some of the food—I’ve been told I have to go Café du Monde and have the beignets, but there are also other places around town I’d like to check out (The Food Network has given me all sorts of ideas). I also plan on visiting a historic cemetery—I do write about dead people, so a cemetery is a must—and I want to explore some of the historic areas in town.

But I’m also excited about the conference. I’ve found myself on some really interesting panels. The two I’m most excited about are the Worldbuilding and The Alphas and Betas of Paranormal Romance panels.

The worldbuilding because my debut novel, Ward Against Death, is a YA historical fantasy, and when you write historical fantasy the world itself needs to become a character. Lots of detail needs to be added without slowing down pacing and finding that balance between “world as character” and “forward momentum of the plot” can be challenging. I’m really curious to learn about the techniques the other writers on the panel use to create immersive worlds.

I’m also interested to hear what the other panelist have to say about Alphas and Betas. For Ward Against Death I’m clearly representing beta heroes. Ward is a young man tossed out of his element into a world he’s not equipped to handle. He’s a scholar, a physician, and a necromancer and not a fighter. Finding himself in a world of assassins and thieves is unlike anything he’s ever experienced before. I have a real soft spot for Ward. He’s charming and sweet, the boy next door—if the boy next door could bring people back from the dead—and I think those qualities, among others, are what attracts readers to a beta hero. Now that isn’t to say I don’t enjoy an alpha hero, only that the first book I’ve published so happened to have a beta. Needless to say, I find the conversation about alphas and beta fascinating.

And what will be really thrilling will be sharing these panels with wonderful writers many of whom I’ve read and seen around on various social networking groups but have yet to meet. There are also so many great workshops and parties planned for the conference that I want to check out, not to mention maybe having a little time to relax and make new. Whew, I feel exhausted just writing about it.

As you can probably tell this is my first readers’ conference and while I realize AAD keeps their conference small—one of the reasons I selected it—it’s still a bigger conference than any I’ve attended before. So help a newbie conference goer out. What’s your best advice for having fun at Authors’ After Dark? And what are the must sees for New Orleans?

Thanks again, Tori, for inviting me today, and I can’t wait to met everyone in August.