An Evening with James Patterson and Mike Lupica

Y’all, you know this year is all about having adventures. Now that the year is winding down, I am still on the lookout for new things to do. I have had so many adventures this year- some I have yet to write about, but I promise they are coming. This week I want to focus on an evening I spent an hour listening to the literary geniuses James Patterson and Mike Lupica.

When I first saw that James Patterson was coming to Raleigh, I was like cool. But I sat on buying the tickets to see him for a while. He is one of my favorite authors, and I love any Hollywood adaption of his work. But I just wasn’t sure I wanted to shell out the money and then be disappointed. Let me rephrase that, Shell out the money, and the event be canceled.

Cancelled? Let me explain, back when 2019- 2020, I had tickets to hear Jenna Bush Hager ( you know, from the Today show) speak and go to a meet and greet with her. I was over the hill. I love her. Notice the years, that’s right, it was right around the time the pandemic hit, so the event kept getting pushed back and back and then finally canceled. That made me a little leary of buying tickets again.

But I decided it was worth it to hear James Patterson speak. When I originally bought the tickets, I bought 2 because I knew I could get someone to go along with me. And I did. Yep, you guessed my trusty sidekick, aka, my youngest daughter, Gracie, came along. The day before the event, I got an email saying that “due to unforeseen circumstances, the authors would not be doing a meet and greet”. I thought oh no, here we go again.

The event took place at Jones Chapel on the campus of Meredith College in Raleigh. We arrived a few minutes early as we stopped for dinner (Five Guys ), and they were slow getting our food out. But favor was upon us as we quickly found a parking spot in a packed lot and made our way inside.

Once inside, they checked our names off the list, and we looked for seats. We both decided quickly that we would sit on the balcony because the view would be better. So off the balcony, we went. We were able to get seats in the front row. And from then on, we were entertained by the antics of the two authors.

They regaled us all night with stories about writing, family, and more. They were thoroughly entertaining, and I love that they also took questions from the audience.

I absolutely loved attending this event. I never knew how funny they were, and I came home with an autographed copy of their book, 12 Months to Live. I can’t wait to tear into it.

One tip I can give you if you love the way a certain author writes, sign up for the newsletter. They always update them with dates for the events they will be at. That is how I originally signed up for this event, but I went a little further and signed up for the bookstore’s (Quail Ridge Books.) newsletter as well, and that is how I signed up to attend another event, this time Henry Winkler is the author. That is happening in November, so look for a post on that coming soon.

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