My Kinda Book Relaunch: Sarra Manning with Leila Sales

This year I've been quite lucky to visit some amazing authors, when Pan Macmillan got in touch about the relaunch of their MyKindaBook.com I was hoping there would be a chance that I would be able to go, but then when I read some more and found out that at this event Sarra Manning would be in conversation with Leila Sales I knew I had to go. All the amazing book events seem to happen in London, which is about an hour train journey from where I live, luck would be on my side as on the day of the event, I actually finished work early for once, so I could giddily run to the train station.

The Pan Macmillan building was pretty impressive, and the room for which the event was going to take place in was amazing. As soon as I walked in Leila was standing there chatting, I was literally awe struck, but tried to keep my fangirling in check. 

The walls were covered with book releases by Macmillan

Both Leila Sales and Sarra Manning were such lovely authors, their conversation was so much fun. Here's a couple of tidbits I managed to scribble back on my train journey home (I was way too nervous scribbling everything down, as no one else seemed to be writing anything) and refreshed my memory from the MyKindaBook Web chat!

• This was Leila's first UK book event.
• Sarra Manning doesn't like listening to music whilst writing, whereas Leila prefers quiet rock n' roll music whilst writing.
• Leila didn't know much about DJ'ing before she started writing This Song will Save Your Life, so learnt more about the technical words from her friends and boyfriend.
• Songs which changed Leila's life was Counting Crows Murder of One and for Sarra it was Up with People by Lambchop (she said it's a song which consists of handclaps, so always great to listen to when feeling down).

• When discussing things that they may have done when they were younger which could have been considered bad (Elyse in This Song Will Save Your Life sneaked out), Leila said she would drive without her licence, whereas Sarra went to gigs in London as a teen, she remembered the time when her train back from Fulham was delayed and so she had to call her parents to pick her up and when her mum turned up she was so embarrassed, as she turned up in her nightie. 
• Leila works as an editor for Penguin US, she said after she had written This Song Will Save Your Life, she received a lot of submissions about attempted suicide.
• When discussing editorial letters, Sarra said the longest she had received was 33 pages and her critique at the end of one of the chapters ended in lol!
• Leila's top authors inlcude: Jennifer Hubbard, her best friend Rebecca Serle and for adult novels Connie Willis. Sarra doesn't read a lot of YA, but one of her favourite books in Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M Delafield
• Sarra is currently writing a novel set in World War two.

At the event I was also able to meet the lovely Daisy from Fangirl Daily we had a great time chatting about books and book to movie adaptations. We also got to chat with Leila and Sarra at the end of the event before I had to dash off for my train. Sarra and Daisy were both big Buffy fans and hugely encouraged me to start watching the show asap! 

Leila, Daisy and Me.

Me with Sarra Manning.

I was also able to get my books signed by these lovely authors and received an awesome goody bag too! 

The MyKindaBook Relaunch was one of the best book events I had been to, a big thank you to them for letting me be a part of it. I've left the full conversation between Sarra and Leila for you to watch below. They discuss their favourite books when they were teens (I actually share one with Leila *high five*) and how they know when their manuscript is finished.