How exciting!! There are so many authors I'd love to hear speak, I'd greatly enjoy hearing firsthand about their creative processes.
Last fall I took my 10 year old son to a Meet & Greet with author Max Brallier [The Last Kids on Earth series] and it was amazing! It was so inspiring to hear him discuss his writing process and the fascinating ways he uses storyboards and illustrations to stimulate his creativity while developing plotlines and characters. My son was thrilled to hear the author read an excerpt - he couldn't get over the idea of how cool it would be to get to read a story that YOU wrote to other people
It was such a wonderful experience for my son. It truly inspired him to spend more time on his independent creative writing and as a result, he started keeping a writing journal shortly thereafter. Currently, he's writing and illustrating a comic book with several of his friends.