Stephenie Meyer:  OK, as much fun as it is to feel like a rock star, we've got, like, twenty minutes here. So real quick, thank you so much everybody for coming out and making me feel like a rock star. You guys are very, very cool. Yes, and thank you to all the repeat customers who were here last year, making this one of the best events around. And now I want to get to your questions so that I can know what you guys really want to hear about. So yes, the brave girl right here, first row. With your hand up.

Question 1: Are you planning to write another series after

Stephenie Meyer:  Am I planning, when you ask if I'm going to write another series, do you mean another vampire, or something different? Something different. My first different book comes out in May. *crowd hoots* It's called

and it's sort of science fiction, which I know turns people off when you hear that, unless you're me, 'cause I like that, but it's not like it at all. It doesn't have that feel. So it's really different, and my only worry is, because I'm very excited about it, I really like these characters in the story. My only real worry is that people are going to get this book, they're going to start going faster and faster and faster, wait a minute. Edward's not here. What? What is this book? Where's Edward? So I'm a little worried about that. OK, in the red shirt.

Question 2: How did you get the ideas for powers like Jane's power? Where'd you get your ideas for their powers?
Stephenie Meyer: How did I get the idea for different vampire powers.  by the point I got around to writing Jane I was just having fun. She's awesome, I love Jane.
So with Edward he had all his characteristics in the first dream I had, that I had to write in the story um and then after that... Alice sort of came along as soon as I thought of her character it was there.  But when I was writing the Volturi I had to kind of dip into my cast of superheroes and just had a whole lot of fun with it. OK, yes right here.

Question 3: Hi. I was wondering if we're going to find out in future books why Bella is immune to vampire skills or if it's irrelevant?
Stephenie Meyer: OK, this is a really good thing I always forget to say and my publicist is going to flick my ear when I go back there.  I can't answer questions about what comes next. At all. BUT I can say that the way Bella is much like the way that Edward is, it's like the way Jasper is and Alice.  It's just something that she was born with; everyone's brains work differently.  And so as Jasper was really charismatic before he became a vampire, you know Bella is already, she kind of thinks differently. All right. Yes, right here, in my favorite sparkly shirt.

Question 4: I was wondering, you said that ..... extra five senses.  Are your vampires ticklish? *Crowd laughs*
Stephenie Meyer:  That is a question I've never gotten before, are my vampires ticklish.  You know, I'm not entirely sure, but you know that Emmet would try.  OK, yes, with the curly hair.

Question 5: Who was your favorite English teacher at BYU?
Stephenie Meyer:  My favorite English teacher at BYU. Stephen Walker, hands down. He was fantastic.  Yes, Katie.

Question 6: Why did you change the cover of

?
Stephenie Meyer: Why, oh! That was I didn't change the cover of the host this is the thing with those covers that...
Question 6: Why was it changed?
Stephenie Meyer:  Why was it changed. With the covers that are on my website, that are just like the play ones that I've made, when I would print off books off my computer and give it to my friends and stuff I would make a cover to put on it, and so it was just what I like.  And then the real art people come in and make the covers and so with the new cover for The Host?, that's the official one that the art directors choose. As an author you don't actually get to pick what's on your book; you're lucky if they let you help. OK, over here in the green.

Question 7:How would you describe the relationship between Bella and Jacob now that she has chosen Edward?
Stephenie Meyer:  How would I describe, she asked, the relationship between Bella and Jacob now that she's chosen Edward.  You know, I heard some of those boos going on out here. Right up there. *screams interrupt*
And so Jacob is a little bit of a, um, see Edward can take care of himself, he's like 110 and he can read minds.  I don't really feel that defensive about him, but I get that way with Jacob because people pick on him and he's only sixteen. But with Jacob and Bella they are very much kindred spirits, and that's not something that would ever change.  When are the kind of person that just naturally clicks with someone else,  whether in a best friend way or in a romance way, that's something that stays. 
Their relationship is not in a good place right now as you might imagine, by the fact that Jacob Black is trying to get to become someone that will never be human again.  Yaaaay poor Jacob!  OK, let's see do we have any in the back here? Yes, in the blue long sleeved t-shirt. Yep. Yes.

Question 8: Why do people like think vampires can't survive in the daylight -------?
Stephenie Meyer: I messed with a lot of vampire myths when I was writing this, and a lot of that is because I don't read vampire books, *laughter* so I was kind of coming with a clean slate.  I mean, I knew the Halloween idea of vampires. You weren't allowed in the sun, you slept in coffins, but it didn't make a lot of sense to me.
It was like why. Why would you do that?  And I liked the idea that all those myths were something that vampires wanted to make and that really, it's a lot different. And so, it made sense to me. Plus my vampires, to me they're not really these dark characters. They're very light and it sort of was a metaphor for how they work in my novels.  You'll notice that the novels are the most dark when the vampires aren't around, so that's part of it.
OK, with the BYU hat.

Question 9:  I want to know if you know from personal experience, --------. Do you know what it's like to be in love with two boys?
Stephenie Meyer: Ooh, if I know what it's like to be in love with two boys. Um, not in the same way.  I never had two choices like that. I wish. But I did go through a long phase of kind of getting engaged a lot.  So I was trying on a lot of different ideas of love and different styles of love, and I ended up marrying my best friend. *Crowd awww.*  OK, right here.

Question 10: I was wondering, like, I've seen websites dedicated to accusing that Bella has a physically and mentally abusive relationship, so what's your opinion on that?
Stephenie Meyer:   Um, she asked about my opinion of the kind of theory that Bella and Edward's relationship isn't very healthy.  And I have seen things from different sides. I've seen things that say Edward is too mean, Edward is too nice. Bella is too mean, Bella is too nice. I mean, that's an oversimplification, but people seem to read it exactly the opposite way from each other and both find something different.  For me, their relationship isn't perfect because they are learning how to do that, how to be in a relationship. And they keep making mistakes. Edward in particular.  Bella is a very focused person.  She kind of has her eyes on the prize and she doesn't deviate from her course, and she also doesn't stop to look at her alternatives, which is one of the reasons I wrote Eclipse the way I did.  I almost felt like a mom in that book, saying "Bella, look at what you're giving up. You think this through, Missy, before you make a decision!" That was kind of where I was in that book.
Edward does a lot more changing, you know, he is a ------- loss. From the moment he meets Bella, everything he's ever thought about how he should live his life is challenged. And so he kind of, if you watch him, he goes back and forth, you know on the one hand he's like very overprotective and he's like thinking "I can maybe shelter her from what I am and from the world," and then he realizes "I can't so I'd better get out of here".& He's very extreme. "I'm going to leave and I'm not going to be a part of it, and she's going to have a normal life." And then that doesn't work out either, and Eclipse he goes back to the overprotective and he's like this isn't working; he's trying to figure out the best way to be what Bella needs and he gets it wrong a lot. I know there's a lot of people that Edward's perfect in their mind, but he's not, he makes a lot of mistakes, but he does learn from them and tries to be better.  So I think they have a healthy relationship. They're both trying. They're trying really hard to do what's best for the other person. OK, in the blue.

Question 11: -----. Like the character Edward and Bella.
Stephenie Meyer: Yeah, everyone always wants to know if there really is an Edward out there. No. Sorry girls, no.  That's good news for the boys, you know - he doesn't exist. But, the only character who's actually, I mean the human characters are mostly based on an amalgam of people that I knew. Like, I knew some Jessicas to more or less extent.  People who were nice to your face, but then you couldn't really count on them. I knew some Laurens, but I also knew some Angelas, which is really good, I have a lot of good Angelas.
The only character who actually is "this is this person," and I didn't intend it that way.  When I wrote the character of Jacob Black, his character was slightly based on a Native American boy named Jacob I met when I was 14 and he made a really big impression on me, but I have a brother named Jacob, so all of my other siblings were like "Uh, Steph, what's with that? Why do you like Jacob better than us?" So, in New Moon all of them made it in.  And Emily is now Sam's girlfriend and Heidi is now the vampire with the sex appeal, and then my other brothers are werewolves.  But the one that's, you know, Seth Clearwater is a really cool kid but he's not like my brother Seth, really.  But Paul is an awful lot like my brother Paul.  Paul doesn't explode into a wolf when he loses his temper, but he's really hairy. And he knows it.  He reads everything and he's like "Stephenie, why am I the only vampire¹ with a temper problem?" And I said, "Paul..." So he knows.  So he's the only one that's really based on that. OK, let's see. In the back, holding the book up.

Question 12:

Stephenie Meyer:  Why did I decide to make Bella a Virgo? Is that the question? All right.  I didn't think about that beforehand.  I needed her birthday to be in September because obviously that was going to be important to how her senior year took shape.  I made her birthday on the 13th because I figured, Bella of course had a lot of Friday the 13ths in her birthday history. I'm not sure what year it would make it, but it just really seemed like she really ought to have been born on one.  So that's why I picked that and then when I looked at it to see what her sign was, she was a Virgo.  So it wasn't on purpose so I didn't have like any meanings behind it.  OK, in the blue shirt, yes you.

Question 13:  I like

, I like your books.  Could you write a book for guys?
Stephenie Meyer:   Well, I'm not sure if I can.  Well, I'm writing

rom Edward's perspective.  It will be really interesting to see how guys react to that, because I kind of, when I write from the male perspective, I draw on my experiences and I have three younger brothers that I'm close to, and I have a lot of cousins my age that are boys, a lot of male friends so I sort of look at and see them as different types, but I don't know if I'm getting it right because I'm a girl, so I'm really going to be interested to see what the male perception of

is. That should be really fun for me. OK, with the apple.

Question 14: What does the title

mean?
Stephenie Meyer: The title

Um, some people have asked me. OK, I put on my website at one point in time that there was a cover for

and I wasn't going to put it up because people were going to get riled and in the cover that I made I need to put it up now, it's really cheesy, it's got like an eclipse going on, and there's just a hint of a face, one in the sun and one in the moon, and the thing and the thing that I thought as going to upset people was cause the face in the moon was Jacob because it was dark and light so it looked like Jacob was eclipsing Edward, I think, and it was deliberately misleading because that was going to be their assumption, but really it was Edward that eclipsed Jacob, which maybe was a more natural pick for her, so for me it's just about what kind of life shutting out the other. OK, um, in the monkey sweatshirt.

Question 15: Will Jacob get imprinted in the future?
Stephenie Meyer:  OK, did I say something about I don't answer questions about the future? Think so, think so. Sorry, not going to tell you what happens next, sorry.
OK, I'll do one more over here, in the dress.

Question 16: What year do these things take place in? We kind of get hints here and there, but...
Stephenie Meyer: I'm not trying to set them in any particular year. I'd like them to feel sort of current, and I know that can't last forever. There is going to come a point in time when people are going to be like "do they - how long ago did they used to make ------?"  So I have some things that are going to date me, but I tried really hard to make them, like, I don't have any of the names of bands or the music that they're listening to because I'm trying to keep it so it just feels current. So like in the front of the movie, it would just say "in the present day." You know how movies do that "ten years ago"? This is "in the present day." OK, red jacket.

Question 17: I was wondering, how did you find that story, about the werewolves, you know, like how did you...?
Stephenie Meyer: Do you mean their back story?  The werewolves' back story is something that I made up. Now the part that's true is the Quileute tribe, in their old legends, is that a magician turned a wolf into a man and that's how the tribe began.  I had a lot of things that I wanted to do with that back story and I just sort of played around with it and the fun thing was that when I was writing it, it came from a completely different place, I think you can tell that when you're reading it.  Like the story kind of stops and takes on a different rhythm.  And so a lot of fun because it felt very different, and I think I just had fun with legends, but it's a whole different kind of storytelling and I really enjoyed it.  But it's all made up, it's not real. OK, in the back with the headband.

Question 18: Did Bella get imprinted?
Stephenie Meyer:   That's going to be the first question on my new

fact page that I need to do when I'm not on the road.  Jacob Black did not imprint on Bella *shrieks interrupt* and the way that we can be sure about this is because what would have been different in

. When he went to talk to her, and he was mean to her that would have been impossible if he had imprinted on her.  And so that's how we know.  OK, these poor people sitting in the sun, right here in the white. Wait just a second, are you Tennyo? Ohhh, OK, I get your question next. Yeah?

Question 19:  How did Carlisle set Bella's hand and Jacob's broken bone without x-rays?
Stephenie Meyer:  Carlisle has an x-ray machine. So with Bella's he was able to do that, with Jacob it was just a matter of, I mean these are big breaks we are talking about, it was just a matter of getting them straight before they could heal up crooked. So it's kind of a matter of you know how in the old West, you used to, you know, bite on the leather and we'll rip your arm straight?  Yeah.  Good times OK, Tennyo.

Question 20: I promise it's not about Edward!
Stephenie Meyer:  OK OK, go on now, feel free.
Question 20:  Is it intentional that Bella has now survived everything that killed off the rest of the Cullens, from the the flu, to being attacked by a vampire, or falling off a cliff?
Stephenie Meyer: it's not entirely intentional that Bella has kind of survived all of those kinds of things, but it does work out nicely, thanks for pointing out the symmetry.
OK, am I doing OK? I'm still OK. yes jumping up and down in the green shirt. Yes, you have to shout.

Question 21: 
Stephenie Meyer: Because that's the thing about Jacob Black fans.  They realize that Edward is taken, but Jacob is still available.  And that is a smart girl. OK, let's see is there anybody in the back that I'm neglecting? In the red.

Question 22:  How many books roughly do you think it's going to keep going for?
Stephenie Meyer: how many books is it going to keep going for? well, I'm about three fourths of the way through book right now *crowd screams* but before you freak out,

was done two years before it was published. Done. but I'm working really, really hard, and we're not going to do advance reading copies until... fingers crossed, it's coming out the same time next year. But people ask me to hurry up, don't ask me that. And then after that I'll do

and then, and then there are a lot of stories that I want to write that don't have vampires in them, so I may take a break, but I do have, I have outlines for books five and six, it'll depend on time, and what I'm feeling like, and if I'm in the mood for mermaids. OK, OK, before you die Hannah, what is it?

Question 23:  OK, so my friend and I was wondering if there was any sort of the parallel between Esme and Bella because they both jump off a cliff, so was that some kind of foreshadowing?
Stephenie Meyer:   Foreshadowing of suicide? No.  *laughter* Esme and Bella, it's two very different experiences. For example when Esme jumped off a cliff, there wasn't an ocean underneath. So it was a very different experience. OK, with the little blonde, yes.

Question 24:  Where are you at with the movie?
Stephenie Meyer:  Where am I at with the movie. *crowd screams* I've had a pretty exciting week. See, I can tell, I don't want to give too many specifics but things are developing and I'm really excited about it.  You know we've all been through the option thing before and it did not work out for us last time, but right now it looks like they really want to do it and they really want to do it the right way and that makes me really excited.  I know that there's always potential because you've all seen movies that didn't excite us that are about books, but then there are some that are so good. My favorite is

which, they just nailed it.  I mean, there were scenes that weren't in the book, but the characters are so true. And I think that's what any writer really wants, for the characters to come through the way that you imagine them.  In fact, I've had people tell me "why, why are you doing this? Why are you putting it out there?" And the reason is, like, 99% pure selfishness. This is about me. I want to see it. Oh, I saw it when I was writing it and it was so real, and I want to see it again, I want to see it on the big screen and have those things come to life.  And I'm excited. Hopefully it's all going well.

Question 25:  Would you consider releasing the more adult version of

that you wrote for your sister?
Stephenie Meyer:  OK, now we have to explain what the word 'adult' means to YA writers.  When I say this book is, my next book, is my adult book, that means that it will not be in the teen section of the book store. That's all.  Adult writers never feel the need to say that this is my new adult book, because obviously. But when you're in YA it just feels just very natural, so you just kind of want to say this will be in a different place in the store; this is a different genre. So that's all adult means. To me, Pride and Prejudice is an adult novel.  You know,

, which is that sequel, the reason that

is not going to be seen is because it's not very good. And I'm kind of embarrassed about it. But all the good stuff that happens in

, you're going to get in book four, so you're not going to miss anything. It just going to be better written.  OK, yes, the boy with the black hair.

Question 26: How do you keep distinct personalities for your characters?
Stephenie Meyer:  He asked how I maintain distinct personalities in my characters. I think the short answer is because I'm crazy.  For me these characters are real people, and when I step away from the computer and I'm out in the real world, I can remember that they're fictional, but when I'm writing they're not; they're real.  I talk about them like they're real and I know what they think about everything. Like while you're reading Jacob Black, when he's being very angry, he's actually being deliciously snarky in my head.  I know everything that he's thinking and he's really funny.  And that happens with a lot of the characters, and I know Alice's subtext, I know what Carlisle is really going on about.  They're all very rounded to me so I couldn't mix them up because they are who they are. I think the reason that I write that way, I'm a character driven writer.  For me the plot is secondary. It's all about the people, and so I don't write a story unless the people that are driving it are already there. And I have three more questions, okay. OK in the back with the white and black, yes.

Question 27: Have you any idea who should play Edward?
Stephenie Meyer:  Who should play Edward. It's a tough one because, okay, as far as people, he's too old. Simmer down!  Keep listening, okay.  I'm not looking at anyone over 21.  I have given up Henry Cavill and that was more of a sacrifice, but he's only 25 years old and Edward is seventeen.  I'm actually thinking he'd make a really cool Carlisle, just bleach him out.  He's got the English accent, he's perfect.
I'm still looking, I haven't found a new Edward that I can really get behind. OK, OK, models are also out we want actors people! actors!  I mean, honestly, we could find the most beautiful model in the world and he could look exactly like Edward and if he gets out there and delivers his lines flat, how annoying is that going to be? We need someone who can do it.  I haven't found him yet, but I'm still looking. Thanks for the offer! Very nice! We've got a volunteer!
OK in the polka dots before she gets ---------.

Question 28: Who do you like better, Jacob or Edward?
Stephenie Meyer:  All right, when I get that question I always say, and so who do I like better of my children, Dave, Seth, or Eli? Why don't I pick one?
Audience Member: Switzerland!
Stephenie Meyer: Switzerland, thank you.  They're both very, very special to me in different ways and I couldn't choose one or the other, but as this young lady has realized:  how could I split up Edward and Bella? You know, they're together! So if I was going to move in on one of them, it would be Jacob. And the last question.  OK, you've been waiting a really long time.

Question 29: I know it's really strange question. OK, let's say vampires bit a werewolf.
Stephenie Meyer: OK, hold on, I'm not taking this one this is a question about the future, what might happen. I know it's theoretical, but I can't answer it.  OK, so with the Twilight vampires are forever sparkle-y shirt.

Question 30: Could you clarify the parallels between

and

-------?
Stephenie Meyer:  She wants to know about the parallels between

and

and also works through other novels and how I see them.  Bella is a reader.  That is a part that, I kind of, you know, that's kind of character I identify with and so she, like me sometimes, sees her life through the filter of the stories that she's read.  So it's not that the story is actually that related to

it's psychosomatic, it's in her head.  It's how she sees herself.  She has always read the story and seen the characters in a certain way, but as time goes on in

she more and more starts to see the bad aspects of this one character in herself and starts to realize how she's doing things wrong and how she's behaving badly.  And so it's just more about her idea of how she sees herself and how she relates to fictional characters.  In the first book that was actually my sort of my

because, you know, it's not really related to the story but that's kind of the epitome of a people meet & fall in love story for me.  And the second one was more about how Edward saw himself in relation to fictional characters.  Book 4 is going to be like

in that the novel that I'm kind of running with won't be linked as much, there won't be quotes, there won't be references so much, but it will be a

.  So we're out of time for questions but those are really good ones and you guys are so cool and I will see you at the signing table! Thank you!


********************************************

1 Of course, this was a small mistake. The character Paul is a werewolf.