Writing is not an easy profession. For authors, it takes a certain dedication to complete a 500-page novel, where I struggle to write a five-page essay. It also takes a certain personality to write a book, and this personality is what creates the author’s voice.

It was quite easy to guess what personality was present when Daniel Handler entered the Palo Alto High School library during third period on Wednesday, April 25. Many people may be more familiar with Handler’s pen name, Lemony Snicket. There was no mistaking his charisma as he entertained the gathering crowd of students while the other two authors, Maggie Stiefvater and John Corey Whaley, were stuck in traffic.

When all had arrived, they lined up, three abreast, in the far corner of the library. Three Printz awardees. Three brilliant authors. Handler took his turn first, his humor and wit instantly making him a crowd favorite. He shared the secret to his inspiration, and the collaboration he had with illustrator Maira Kalman on his new novel “Why We Broke Up”. Kalman had a desire to draw simple pictures of ordinary things, according to Handler, which then became the basis of his story.

He wondered how ordinary things can be interesting, and the answer was they need to mean something. “Something totally ordinary becomes magical,” Handler said. And what better magic than the power of love.

Keeping in tune to his enormously popular “A Series of Unfortunate Events,” Handler adds an unfortunate twist to this story as well. It tells the story of a break up and seemed very “Daniel Handler” to me. The passage he read was, unmistakably, the tone of Lemony Snicket and was as humorous and witty as Handler in person.

The next author to take the microphone was thirty-year-old Maggie Stiefvater, author of “The Scorpio Races.” Her inspiration came from the stories she loved as a child, particularly one “based on the legend of the Irish water horses,” Stiefvater said.

Not only is “The Scorpio Races” her favorite novel, according to Stiefvater, but “it’s the most Maggie,” Stiefvater said. Contrasting Handler’s fast-paced style of writing, the passage Stiefvater read aloud was tense and quiet. Words were not in excess, and I could feel her personality in the writing.

The last author to speak was the Printz Award winner: 28-year-old John Corey Whaley. His novel, “Where Things Come Back,” is reminiscent of his childhood, according to Whaley, as he grew up in a small town on the border of Louisiana and Arkansas. Whaley was formally an English teacher for five years and was surprisingly down to earth. At the conclusion of his presentation, I felt as if I had a shot at professional writing. All I needed was the right approach and the right story.

All three authors then took questions, and the first asked was exactly what I was wondering.

“How do your personalities affect your different writing styles?” someone shouted from the crowd.

Handler answered first, after fighting off an accusation that he was “sassy.”

“I’ve been called sissy,” he said “But not sassy before.”

Handler then told the story of how he became interested in the phenomenon known as “horrible things happening to people for no reason.” His father fled the Nazis in Germany in 1939, and he has been captivated by the phenomenon ever since, writing “A Series of Unfortunate Events,” and now “Why We Broke Up.”

“Terrible things just happen,” Handler said.

Stiefvater and Whaley had similar heart-touching stories, with Whaley growing up in a small town similar to the one in his book and Stiefvater captivated by the stories of Irish water horses she heard as a kid.

Each had their own personalities, and each had their own writing styles. But one thing was certain. The voice that we get to know and love in the novels we read are no flukes. I was expecting socially awkward authors when I arrived in the Paly library third period, not sophisticated personalities. And out of everything said, the most important thing is the one not said: that discovering who you are is the real key to becoming a good writer.