FanX Comic & Pop Culture Convention is well known for providing fans the opportunity to meet famous celebrities. Between photo ops, autograph signings and guest panels, fans have the chance to meet the people who appear on their screens. Another opportunity for fans that might get overlooked is the opportunity to meet popular authors.
FanX allows authors to share their books with new and old fans alike. This year, 19 authors were featured as guests for the convention, however smaller independent authors also advertised their work in the vendor booths.
“Every year has been a little bit better. It’s successful enough that we love to come back and meet readers, and every year we come back, there’s always more readers that came the year before, so it builds on itself,” Katie Cross, a young adult fantasy author, said. This was her third year at FanX, where she introduced potential new readers to her books.
Many author signings were available on the vendor floor courtesy of The Printed Garden, a bookstore based in Sandy, Utah. On Sept. 27, The Printed Garden welcomed Utah author Brandon Mull to their table for a signing.
Mull, the author of the “Fablehaven” and “The Candy Shop Wars” series, began signing at 4 p.m. The line to meet him and get an autograph extended around the booth, wrapping around itself a few times. The exhibition volunteers had to cut off the line at 5:45 p.m. as fans kept coming.
Attendee Tawna Stocking was towards the start of the line when the signing began and said she’d been waiting for about 45 minutes. She said this was not her first time meeting Mull and that she read the first book to her daughter. Now introducing the series to a new generation, Stocking was there to get the first book signed for her great-niece.
“It is a fun energy here. Everyone’s here to geek out about their fandoms. It’s just been really positive,” Mull said.
Mull’s success started through a writing process that he has been working on since he was in college.
Mull attended Brigham Young University, where he got plenty of writing experience as both a writer for the Divine Comedy Group and as a theater reviewer for the Daily Universe, BYU’s school paper.
“By writing and performing comedy, it was like going to dialogue camp,” Mull said. “It really helped me develop comic timing and develop an ear for dialogue.”
Mull said his advice for new writers is to look at what they like to read and understand what those authors are doing to make the reader get lost in the story. He said he did this with his favorite authors and books, and it helped him understand how to recreate that reader trance. Translating his ideas into books was a challenge as a young writer, but this reading helped him.
“If you can write a good chain of scenes, you can write a book,” Mull said.
