YALC 2016 Line-Up Reaction

YALC is wonderful! But you all know that already. Having followed and been to every single one since its inception (don't be too impressed, it's only in its 3rd year) I have seen it grow and change. 

The first year certainly had some hiccoughs (you couldn't hear the workshops, the seating in the auditorium area was a bit cramped, blah, blah, blah). But those niggles were made up for by an incredible line-up!

2015 was a marked improvement in logistics - separate venue with speakers, blocked off areas for workshops and the genius addition of an agents' area. It was obvious the organisers listened to the feedback of attendees in 2014 and we really appreciate it. With incredible names like Cassandra Clare and Judy Blume too (who I got to escort around the festival and help with her signing! I love my job!), it was even better than 2014. You can find my 2015 YALC highlights post here for an even clearer idea and some pics below.  

YALC 2015 Highlights Reel 

This event is just heaven for a YA lover... obviously. This year's lineup just dropped and it is looking amazing! Here are some of the authors I'm really excited about seeing: 


Malorie Blackman - My goddess! I have a signed first edition of Chasing the Stars but screw it, I'm going to get her to sign it again! Shakespeare panel methinks? 

Melvin Burgess - So this year marks the 20th anniversary of Melvin's iconic Junk. Having seen him and Malorie on a panel together before, I know that he is so widely respected and a great speaker. He'll be high on my to-see list!

Keren David  - Keren is one of my favourite contemporary YA authors and I've been sad she hasn't been included in the past. I was firmly #TeamSalvage for last year's YA Prize and also loved This Is Not A Love Story. I really cannot wait to hear what Keren's been up to! 

Patrick Ness - Last year I saw Patrick in conversation with Judy Blume and he was an incredible speaker and compare. I can't wait to hear him talk about the adaptation of A Monster Calls. With the actor playing Connor coming as well! 

V.E Schwabb - All anyone talks about this year is V.E Schwabb. Looking forward to seeing what all the fuss is - I discovered Red Queen last year so here's hoping for another amazing discovery in 2016. 

Alwyn Hamilton - How much did we all love Rebel of the Sands? A lot! Wickedly excited, hope there will be a debut panel! 

Lauren James - One of the nicest authors you'll ever meet, Lauren is an absolutely gem and a fellow Nottingham Alum. Her debut novel The Next Together is YA's answer to Outlander - another for the debut panel I hope!

Juno Dawson - With Lisa Williamson also on the playbill and a lot of debate about representing trans and non-gender conforming characters occurring last year, I am sincerely looking forward to seeing what topics Juno will be discussing. Also, Juno rocked serious Daenerys cosplay last year. I am sincerely hoping that another stellar costume is in store. 

Lucy Saxon - Speaking of cosplay, Lucy's incredible outfits are always a highlight of YALC. She has assured me via Twitter that she has some amazing pieces prepped for this year too!  

Tom Ellen and Lucy Ivison - Love the work by these two and can't wait to hear what they're getting up to. Having seen them both at the YA Book Prize Blogger Drinks, their new book Freshers sounds so exciting. Often the first year of university to relegated to NA smut novels, so really nice to see Rainbow Rowell and Tom & Lucy exploring this area. YA readers aren't just in high school and college you know *cough, turning 26 this month, cough* 

Non Pratt - simply because Non is awesome! 

Sara Barnard - I really loved Beautiful Broken Things and am just excited to hear Sara speak. The fact that she's joining Holly Bourne and other to talk about Squad Goals just makes it all the better. Sign me up! 

Pete Kalu - Pete is an author you might now have heard of, but he is published by HopeRoad, an indie who specialise on voices often marginalised in the media from Africa, Asian and the Caribbean. Having worked with Pete professionally in the past, I know him to be a wonderfully eloquent, passionate and lovely author. His book Being Me by Adele Vialu had some insightful things to say about race and what it is to be a woman, and Pete is very passionate about writing POCs accurately. I predict a great panel on identity in our future... To get an idea of Pete's ideas, check out this piece he did for the Guardian on writing non-cliched multicultural characters.

Nat Luurtsema - I heard Nat read from her new book Girl Out of Water at the Walker Blogger Brunch last year and she is milk out the nose funny! As well as an established author, Nat is a Bafta-nominated screen writer and comic so this is gonna be good...

Another  Harry Potter Day - last year was awesome, I'm just hoping that we get some different activities and fun things that aren't a replay of last year. 


So without just saying everything and everyone, this is who I am really looking forward to seeing. It's a cracking line-up that has a nice level of familiarity, friendly faces coming back and new exciting authors joining for the first time. With Hay's YA lineup quite a bit smaller this year, this is THE EVENT for YA lovers in 2016!


So I'm off to do this for a few hours and book my tickets, I suggest you do too! 

The First Ever UKYAExtravaganza!

So on Saturday 28th Feb I attended the first ever UKYA Extravaganza at Waterstones Birmingham, organised by the formidable Kerry Drewery and Emma Pass. There was a staggering collection of 33 authors with an avid audience of bloggers, vloggers, booksellers, librarians and book enthusiasts of all kinds. 

First off, thank you to @LibwithAttitude for my ticket. I missed out on the sale of tickets, but Lib sadly couldn't attend so she was very kind to send it on to me, with a lovely little note too. My phone died so no tweets, but this write up is for you Lib, and George who I also promised tweets. My bad... 

Sadly I missed the first half hour (traffic in Birmingham... quel nightmare!) but lovely Jim from YAYeahYeah caught me up. There format of the event was mini panels of 5 authors and one minute each to  summarise their books, followed by a Q&A. According to Jim, the first panel attempted short readings each, but it soon became clear this wouldn't work. Which was a shame, because I would have been keen to hear more from all the authors. If the event were to be repeated, I personally think it could have done with either being smaller or longer, giving more time to each author. I really won't complain though, because it was brilliant to hear about so many fantastic books and meet so many booklovers. 

If like me, you looked at the line up and saw amazing authors you'd heard of but never picked up, here were some of my highlights and new discoveries: 

Books I brought along with me

Keren David, author of Salvage 

I am slowly but surely making my way through the YA Book Prize Shortlist, so Keren was the only author I had read before this point. Salvage is the story of Cass and Aidan, brother and sister separated by an adoption. On a personal note, I was adopted by one of my parents and I do not know anything, by choice, about the other side of my parentage. So this subject is very close to me, whilst also being something that I have not really thought much about which makes it a weird but really provoking read for me. I am currently 50 pages in, and I'm really enjoying it thus far. 

Lovely dedication from Keren

I was very keen to meet Keren and was lucky to have a conversation with her about her inspiration. Interesting fact -she didn't speak to any adopted children before writing this story. She spoke to adoptive parents, social workers and other people involved in adoption, but not an actual adopted child themselves. 

As she is not adopted herself, Keren wanted to avoid the story becoming too biographical of any child she spoke to. As someone effected by adoption, I'm curious to see what my reaction to the rest of the story will be and have promised Keren to give her my reaction when I'm finished. I will definitely be reviewing it here in due course. 

Books I picked up on the day (because they sounded awesome 
and I couldn't resist!)

Lovely dedication part 2 from Christina 

Christina Banach, author of Misty
One morning, Christina woke up to a sugary smell. It was exactly the smell her father a baker, would bring home with him every day from work. She then heard the happy panting of her rescue dog. Trouble is, both had been dead for several months. 

And then suddenly, the entire story of Misty where one identical twin watched the other from beyond the grave came straight into her head. Christina's story was so inexplicable and she told it with such conviction that I ran to the table and snapped up one of the last copies.I'm really glad this comes from indy publisher Three Hares Publishing, and it's right at the top of my TBR pile. Check out Christina's full story here http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/real-life

My haul for the day 

  Eve Ainsworth, author of 7 Days 

I've heard a lot about this book and the fact that it's a dual   narrative told both the victim and bully's point of view   made it impossible not to buy. Especially when Eve was the first person I spoke to and she was so incredibly nice. 

Books I wish I could have bought *if it weren't for my self-impossed limit* 

Kerry Drewery, one of the organisers and author of A Brighter Fear and A Dream of Lights
Both of Kerry's books are set in hostile places she has never been able to visit, Afghanistan and North Korea. So I asked her how she could properly represent these places she had never been to. She pointed out that no-one has ever been to the places written about in a lot of fantasy and science fiction, but that as these were real places with real problems she felt a big need to portray them right. So she read lots of different kinds of books on all the places and immersed herself as much as she could into the place. Little writer's note: Kerry writes in an attic room with no windows and a slopped roof. So she covers the slopped wall in front of her desk with pictures of the place she is writing about to really get a feel for it. 

Emma Pass, also an organiser and author of Acid
Acid is a dystopic novel about a girl who is busted out of prison by a rebel group, and our heroine has to find out why, and why she was there in the first place. This sounds a lot like a terrible novel I wrote when I was 14, so this is really a curiosity/self-flagulation thing.

Alan Gibbons, author of Hate
This book to me sounded really interesting as it about the murder of a girl by four ignorant lads because she is a goth. The vilification of subcultures like 'goth' is something I find really horrible and sad, so I'm sure this book is going to touch me. Also, Hate is inspired by Alan's meeting with the mother of a girl who was murdered for dressing as a goth. So this is going to be really raw and truthful hopefully. 

Alan also went on something of a 'middle aged man rant' - his words, not mine - about libraries shutting down in Birmingham. Good to have another warrior on the scene.

Sarah Naughton, author of The Blood List
 This story was inspired by a programme Sarah watched about medieval folk stories, where Sarah heard about how parents used to leave their babies out in the woods in the hope that the fairies would replace them with perfect babies. The Blood List is a story about a family this happens to, and the repercussions afterwards when the 'perfect child''s origins start to unravel. This sounds to me akin to Half Bad, which I really enjoyed, so will pick this up next pay day for sure. 

Swag

Kate Ormand, author of The Wanderers 
The Wanderers sounds like a trippy, YA version of The Night Circus. I LOVED THE NIGHT CIRCUS so I am really looking forward to this, but why is September so far away? Time to read The Dark Days in the meantime I guess... 

Kendra Leighton, author of Glimpse

The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees.   

The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas.   

The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,   

And the highwayman came riding—

         Riding—riding—

The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

Glimpse was inspired by Alfred Noyes's poem 'The Highway Man', which I loved in high

school, so that may just have to go on the TBR pile too. 

Caroline Green, author of Cracks
Cracks is the story of a girl who can see actual cracks forming in the world that no-one else can see and how she deals with this. Caroline had a moment of inspiration when she saw a crack in one of her bathroom tiles while brushing your teeth. Moral of the story, brush your teeth more. That's where the magic happens. 

 Lou Morgan, author of Sleepless
Sleepless is a horror/thriller about what happens when students take performance enhancing drugs. I love the concept, but probably won't pick it up because I am a big chicken and can't read horror without being up for days, rocking in my bed clutching a flashlight. 

Bryony Pearce, author of The Weight of Souls 
Ghost stories seemed a strong theme at this event, and Bryony's 2nd novel fit in very well. I loved the idea of ghosts marking you and having to find the murderer. I'll be keen to give this a read, because I think the balance of darkness in this could be really interesting. 

Sarah Sky, author of Code Red Lipstick 

I didn't get to hear Sarah talk, but I did discover she went to Nottingham Uni, just like myself and Lauren E. James. So it would be just plain rude of me not to pick up her book. Looking forward to this one, and Lauren's The Next Together coming in September. 

Honourable mentions

CJ Daughtery, author of The Night School Series
 I had heard of CJ and her series before but not picked it up. I was very interested to hear it was inspired by the Bullingham Club and a picture she saw of Eaton. 

Rose Mannering, author of Roses
Roses is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, and is part of a wider trilogy inspired by fairy tales. I always like the sound of these allegorical sort of books, and intend to read around them quite widely - handy goodreads list in anyone is keen to do the same. 

Author line-up (this is only half of them!) 

Overall, I had a really good time at the event and as you can tell from the above, discovered some fantastic books and authors. I met some great new people, including Olivia who is a fellow newbie blogger - check out her great blog Write for Real here. 

I want to say a massive well done to everyone involved, it was a great day and I would love to go to another event like this. And I'm in luck because... *drum roll*...

There is to be another UKYA Extravaganza event in October in Nottingham! 

My university town, yay! 

Find out all the details of this second event and watch videos of the event on Saturday 

over at Chelle's lovely Tales of Yesterday. 

Bookish love! 

Rachel