In the summer of 1996, my best friend Dani and I were on a camping trip when she handed me a paperback copy of The Eye of The World . She was living in Oregon, I was living in California and we were 16. We got to see each other roughly once a year and kept in contact via letters (the mailed kind) and pricey long distance phone calls. We didn’t get to do much “together” given the distance, but The Eye of the World changed that. We spent the next sixteen and a half years reading those books together. There were literally HOURS of phone calls discussing prophecies, foreshadowings and of course theories such as who killed Asmodean and where Moiraine was.
When the release date for A Memory of Light was announced I told my husband that all I wanted for Christmas was an airplane ticket so that Dani and I could both go to the final book signing. Since we had started the series together, it seemed fitting to end it together.
When the announcement came from Dragonmount about the opportunity to be Memory Keepers, I nominated Dani and myself, hoping against hope that we would be able to add some wonderful memories to our WoT journey. I was shocked and thrilled when we were chosen, so I flew up to Portland to be a part of the magic.
And magical it was.
Powell’s at Cedar Hills Crossing was enchanting. It was a HUGE bookstore that felt intimate and friendly. The staff was incredibly friendly and helpful, especially Renee and Peter, who interacted most with Memory Keepers and fans. They were full of enthusiasm, patience and joy and helped make sure the whole event ran smoothly.
We arrived at about 5:00 pm. We met Andy (First Among Equals), the bookstore staff and the other Memory Keepers. The first hour was spent handing out tickets for the signing, collecting raffle tickets, answering questions and directing fans to their seats.
Brandon and Harriet arrived at 6pm. We were escorted to the back stock room and spent a few minutes chatting with Brandon and Harriet. They were the sweetest, most generous people you could hope to meet. Author Brent Weeks popped back to say hi while we were chatting so that was a nice little bonus!
At 7:00 pm, Brandon and Harriet walked out to meet the crowd of over 450 people. After brief introductions Brandon opened the floor to questions. Brandon and Harriet answered every question with good humor and charm. There were a lot of great stories told. For those of you interested in the details, skip below for the Q&A report.
If you are viewing this on github.io, you can see that this site is open source. Please do not try to improve this page. It is auto-generated by a python script. If you have suggestions for improvements, please start a discussion on the github repo or the Discord.