Nicholas Sparks …

• Posted in About Books, On Writing

So I did something kind of cool Saturday — I got to hear Nicholas Sparks speak. Sparks is the mega-popular author of books like The Notebook and Message in a Bottle (both of which have been made into movies).

One of my local libraries has an endowment to bring authors/speakers to the area, and he was their big draw this year. An interesting note: the library paid him $25,000 to come in, go to a luncheon, and do a talk at one of the local arts venues — all of which added up to about 4 or 5 hours’ worth of his time. Nice work if you can get it. 😎

Sparks was very personable and told a lot of funny stories about his kids and his dog. He also gave some insight as to how he came up with the idea for The Notebook and his other books. Many were family stories or tragedies.

For example, his wife’s grandparents and their love story was the inspiration for The Notebook. His dad finally learning to love again after his mom’s death and his dad then dying in a car accident was the inspiration for Message in a Bottle.

Overall, Sparks was a good speaker with a lot of interesting antecedotes. Next year, I hope the library brings in someone just as well-known and entertaining. I’d love to hear John Grisham speak or Lisa Kleypas or a dozen other authors …

4 Responses to “Nicholas Sparks …”

  1. Amy says:

    Nicholas Sparks, eh? Pretty nice! I’m more than a little jealous that I can’t get speakers like that.

    Although I did get Jennifer Estep to come to my library. 😉

  2. Jennifer Estep says:

    He was entertaining, although at times, I did get the impression that he was sort of putting on a show for the crowd. Know what I mean?

    Yeah, I hear that Jennifer Estep does crazy things like that for her friends … 😉

  3. Edie says:

    Your library has a lot more money than mine! One of the librarians wrote an article on the local paper, complaining about how much it costs them to get books through inter-library loans. I used it all the time, and now I feel guilty.

    Glad you had a wonderful time! If my library had that kind of money, I’d ask them to try to get JK Rowling. 😀

  4. Jennifer Estep says:

    I don’t think it’s technically the library’s money — more like an endowment from someone.

    Heh. I bet Rowling gets a lot more than $25 grand for an appearance. 😎

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