On Sunday, Emile, A (from abookphilosophy), Harriet (from Lost In Words) and I went to YALC 2016 in Olympia, London. We had a great time and met some incredible authors and got a load of freebies.
However, we completely misjudged the time it would get to take the tube so we ended up getting to Olympia at around 9:30. When we got there, we first signed up to the fanfiction workshop (run by Lucy Saxon) at 11:00 and then we went round all the stalls because they were giving out a whole load of freebies which we, more than happily, picked up! By around 10:30 we had our bags covered in badges and a bagful of leaflets.
We sat down in the 'reading corner' for a 5/10 mins and then realised that the Fanfiction workshop was soon, so we started making our way over to the corner/ workshop room to wait for it to begin.
The Fanfiction workshop was entertaining but not the best bit of the day. We all felt that it lacked a bit of interaction, it was more of a talk where we were instructed on how to write and the dos and don'ts of Fanfiction. It was advertised as a workshop so it was a bit of a let down :-(
Although, at the end, Lucy gave us cute little pouches full of slips of paper with fanfic ideas on them. This was a super idea!
After the fanfiction workshop, we walked back round the publisher stalls and found out from Twitter that V.E. Schwab was doing an unofficial signing at the Waterstones stall. We waited in her queue for about 10/15 mins which was not long at all. (Quick Tip- always have twitter on hand as authors and publishers tweet about random signings and giveaways that they are doing out of the blue).
This was the first author that we met and we were freaking out in the queue but then when we finally got to meet her she was really sweet and signed all of our books and tote bags :-)
Next (after relaxing for a while), Harriet saw that Holly Bourne was signing. I was going to go with her and get Am I Normal Yet? so that I could get it signed with her. But, on the way to Waterstones to get the book...I SAW ALWYN HAMILTON! So I changed my plans and just went to Alwyn Hamilton instead to get my Rebel of the Sands signed. (Side Note- the authors we met also signed our tote bags.)
Alwyn was super nice and we ended up just having a chat with her, it was really relaxed.
The highlight of my day (and I think everyone else's day) was the #MorallyComplicatedYA panel. This panel was absolutely aammmmaaaaazzzzziiiiinnnnggggggggg! It touched upon loads of things that really need to be talked about (abuse, sex, censorship, feminism etc.) The authors on this panel were Manuela Salvi, Louise O'Neill, Emerald Fenell and Melvin Burgess. Theses are all seen as "contreversial" authors and they were great on the panel.
So, that panel was fantastic and am really happy that we chose to go to it. And would like to say thankyou to all the authors who were on it! (Not that any authors will read this). Also, after the panel, all the authors were doing signings so I got Only Ever Yours by Louise O'Neill signed (who had the longest queue by far ;-/) and got my tote bag signed by Emerald Fennel. They were both lovely and it was a pleasure meeting them.
For the rest of the day we kind of just sat and relaxed and then went to the Harry Potter panel/ contest to support HUFFLEPUFF!
At the end of the day, there were some really good deals for books (2 books for £5) so I also got Girl Hearts Girl by Lucy Sutcliffe and To All the Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han.
Overall, I had a great day and am really excited for next year!
Happy Reading,
