Finally finished RoW, and started listening to the Shardcast recently, so thought I'd jump in here.
Hi, I'm Stephanie, a Utah native now living near St. Louis. Geeky mom of 3 little kids and one grown stepkid.
I first met Brandon when he was just "another Utah fantasy author" coming to the convention I helped run (Conduit), and the symposium I attended and once or twice presented fan stuff at (BYU's Life, the Universe & Everything). I kept meaning to get around to reading his books (he was one of multiple "smallish time" authors who were semi-regulars at the Con whose books I intended to read). And then, it was announced that he had been chosen to finish the Wheel of Time... His books immediately went to the top of my list.
When The Gathering Storm came out, I was lucky enough to get to be a "Stormguard" for the book signing at Sam Weller's bookstore in Salt Lake City. We had dinner with Brandon (he had the fancy Mac n Cheese, because he's Brandon, lol) and spent an evening helping run the signing.
Funny story from that night: I was listening to the Hero of Ages audiobook at the time and got to be the first one who told Brandon that they'd given Demoux a French accent...
How it happened: The character's namesake came through the signing line, and Brandon introduced him to everyone. I asked the guy how he liked his character's accent in the audiobook. Brandon said something like "Accent? What kind of accent?"
Me: "Very French"
B: "Really? Do any of the others?"
Me: "Not really."
B: *laughing* "Why would they give just him an accent?"
Me: *Shrug* "His name is French? Demoux?"
B: "They're ALL French... Kelsier? Vin? The whole book is French inspired. But they only gave Demoux an accent?"
Me: "Pretty much"
B: *chuckles*
Later that evening I queued up my iPod Mini and played a clip so he could hear it. More chuckles.
Anyway. I'm known across the 'net by the same username above, look me up at your own risk. If you want to know a bit about my personality... Well, if I were a Knight Radiant I'd be a Lightweaver who uses the written word to plan her illusions. After meeting Pattern, Pattern, Pattern, and Pattern in RoW this week, I decided my Cryptic would be called Tesselation, or Tess for short, and would look something like the eye-bending picture on the left here, but, you know, moving:
https://d2jv9003bew7ag.cloudfront.net/uploads/Left-Hyperbolic-tesselation-via-plus.google-com-Right-Hyperbolic-tesselation-via-cgl.uwaterloo-ca.jpg
Anyway, hello!