On Sep. 29, New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of the Grisha series, Leigh Bardugo, visited Austin on her “Magic and Mayhem” tour. Along with book signings, the first book in her long-awaited new series, The Six of Crows, finally went on sale, so the fans were able to purchase and read that as well.

“It was really a once in a lifetime experience.” Helen Fang ‘19 said..

During the visit, Bardugo told many entertaining anecdotes, such as how one fan would not stop calling her at three in the morning, and kept the fans on the edges of their seats waiting to catch her next word. She also gave out many writing tips and answered questions about her own writing habits from young, aspiring writers. Young adult fiction author Julie Murphy was there as well to talk with Bardugo, and their conversations brought many laughs from the audience.

“Apparently Leigh Bardugo can’t get through the darkling’s death without crying,” Fang said. “She said she even deleted the song she wrote it to from her playlist!”

The “Darkling” is one of Bardugo’s most famous characters. He is known to be horribly powerful, handsome, cruel, and evil, and the fact that his death made the author cry is rather surprising. However, in a response to a question about another one of her favorite characters, King Nikolai, she said that she was working on a book about him called The King of Scars. Nothing is set in stone yet, but she said that it had a high chance of being published, so the fans should stay in touch.

Some tips that Bardugo gave were to write in “layers” ; if something doesn’t make sense, she temporarily stops writing and waits for her thoughts to calm down before picking it back up. Murphy’s advice was to “treat anything you aspire to do like it’s your job already, you’ll make more progress if you do so.”

To learn more about Leigh Bardugo, read her original series, or purchase the Six of Crows, visit her website.