Stephenie Meyer Auctions Off Rare Manuscripts
Popular Author Raises Thousands to Help Pay Friend's Medical Bills
Apr 8, 2009
For fans of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series, April 4, 2009 marked a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to not only meet their favorite author but also bid on several one-of-a-kind items from Meyer’s personal collection.
“The plan was for me to go entirely hermit this year (or decade),” wrote Meyer in a March 16, 2009 blog entry. “But there are always those things important enough to pull me out of my burrow.”
Meyer was referring to Project Book Babe, a benefit designed to help pay her friend Faith Hochhalter’s medical bills after Hochhalter was diagnosed with breast cancer. A dedicated book buyer and promoter, Hochhalter helped launch many children’s authors’ careers, including Meyer’s, by arranging great media coverage for them over the years.
Along with fellow children's authors J.S. Lewis, P.J. Haarsma, Janette Rallison, Shannon Hale, Laini Taylor, James A. Owen, Chris Gall, Dean Lorey, and Brandon Mull, Meyer participated in a lively author discussion panel at Project Book Babe before moving on to the highly anticipated auction – where she offered original manuscripts of her books, an autographed advance reader copy, and even a personal lunch.
Stephenie Meyer Twilight, Forever Dawn, and Eclipse Book Manuscripts
Encouraged by auctioneer J.S. Lewis, co-author of The Grey Griffins series, audience members began bidding enthusiastically, bringing in a $1500 winning bid for the first item – an autographed advanced reading copy of Meyer’s original Twilight book.
Still, audience members didn’t need much incentive – as one woman actually asked Lewis to start the bidding on Meyer’s prom dress, which she had worn at her 2007 Eclipse Prom, at $500. (It ended up selling for $5500 to Gilbert, Arizona resident Alison Genet, president and creator of Twifans.com, who plans to wear the dress at an upcoming Phoenix Twilight Convention).
Genet’s husband also bid $5000 on a never-before-seen epilogue to Forever Dawn (the unpublished original sequel to Twilight), before being outbid by a pharmacist from Louisville, Colorado, who took the epilogue home for $5100.
The pharmacist, a cancer survivor herself, had sign a confidentiality agreement to not to disclose the events of the epilogue to anyone else.
Other fans took home original manuscripts of Meyer’s Eclipse book (winning bid $2600) and The Host (winning bid $1200). Both fans also signed confidentiality agreements.
One of the more unusual items was a The Host Skateboard designed by Hobo Skateboards and signed by Meyer, which was bought by Linda Bradley from Philadelphia, who placed the winning bid of $1500 and gave it to her daughter Megan.
Lunch with Stephenie Meyer
Yet the auction’s most coveted item turned out not to be a thing but an opportunity – namely a lunch with Stephenie Meyer. After some good-natured ribbing from Rapunzel’s Revenge co-author Shannon Hale (who made Meyer promise the lunch would include an appetizer) the bidding began, and quickly escalated into a contest between Donna Perinich and Carol Robilotta, a third grade teacher and principal from Temecula, California, whose offers went over $6000.
In the end, Meyer agreed to award two lunches – for $6500 each – to both bidders, exchanging a high-five with Lewis as the winning bids were announced.
Both admitted “Edward Cullen addicts,” Perinich and Robilotta plan on sharing their lunch with Perinich’s daughter.
Grateful Stephenie Meyer Fans
Ultimately, the live auction raised $28,900 for Hochhalter’s medical expenses – and left many fans extremely happy.
“There’s not a child alive who doesn’t know who Stephenie Meyer is,” said Perinich, who knows her students will love hearing about her lunch with Meyer. “And this is such a great cause.”
Read all about the Project Book Babe event at Famous Authors Entertain at Project Book Babe.
And learn how Project Book Babe began by reading Children’s Authors Help Fight Cancer.
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