YALC At Home 2020

The last weekend in July should have been YALC, which is usually held as part of London Comic Con. I've been a couple of times, but wasn't planning to go in 2020 as it's really quite inaccesible to me. I can't walk very far, I get easily overstimulated, and accommodation in London is often really expensive. That's why I've preferred to go to Northern YA Lit Fest as it's so much better for me in many ways. 

But then of course Covid-19 happened, and YALC and the comic con got cancelled. YALC decided to have YALC At Home over the same weekend. There was a really helpful spreadsheet and the time was really packed - there was stuff to be doing for three whole days! Some stuff needed prior registration, and there was stuff happening on Twitter, Instagram, Zoom, and more. I signed up for a few panels on Saturday and Sunday. I mentioned that it was YALC to my friend Lucinda, who is a children's librarian and with whom I often swap books and recommendations. She's been to YALC a bunch of times, but thought she had missed the online one when working the previous weekend. She was pleased to find out she hadn't, so signed up for some of the same panels as me. 

On Saturday morning I got up bright and early to watch The Horror Panel with Melinda Salisbury and Katherine Foxfield, and chaired by P M Freestone. It was really interesting; I don't read much horror but I liked hearing about how each author built tension. Melinda's new book Hold Back the Tide was just 83p on Kindle so I bought it. 

Next I watched a panel on Runaway YA, books starring a runaway in one way or another. Lisa Williamson, Non Pratt, Patrice Lawrence, Amelia Mandeville, and Chloe Heuch were on this panel, and it was really lovely to hear all of them. I was cross-stitching while I was watching, and messaging Lucinda on WhatsApp, which were both nice. Lucinda and I both felt like we were together watching the panels, so it was a good way to hang out. I believe Lucinda was doing chores around the house and then crocheting. 

Watching panels even from home turns out to be as exhausting as watching them in person, so I had a little break after that and had some lunch and watched some other things. I clocked back into YALC at 2pm for the Romance panel. Now, there was a clash with the Supernatural panel, which I also wanted to see, but I'd seen on Twitter that the Walker Books panels were being recorded and would be available to watch later, so I watched the other one live instead. I also passed this information on to Lucinda, who joined me in the Romance one. 

The authors in that one were Simon James Green, Leah Johnson, Chloe Seager, and Katy Birchall. It was a really funny panel and although I wouldn't say I am a romance fan I liked the stories in a lot of these books and I agreed with points made about queering the tropes that we have seen a million times. 

The Romance panel with (top left clockwise) Simon James Green, Chloe Seager, Katy Birchall, and Leah Johnson)

At 4pm Lucinda persuaded me to watch a panel on spin offs, which she wanted to see because Sarah Rees-Brennan was on the panel and Lucinda likes her. I knew next to nothing about the spin offs, but I enjoyed the panel and listening to the authors talk about how they work alongside canon to write their books. I asked a question in this panel, which was really easy to do in the Zoom meetings, which was excellent. 

After that, I logged off for the day and watched a film with my partner instead.

On Sunday there wasn't anything I fancied, so it was 4pm before I started. But I settled down with my cross stitch, messaging Lucinda again, for Feminist YA with Lucy Cuthew, Holly Bourne, Kate Weston, Nikita Gill, and Anna James. There were some interesting books mentioned here, which I will have to check out. I didn't stay in this panel for the Q&A, which is something I would absolutely do in person, too. YALC can be really hard and I'm not good at sitting still for a long time at the best of times. In most of the panels, it's very easy to sneak out if you need to. 

Between 5pm and 6pm I watched a couple of video clips that had been put up, including Lisa Williamson reading part of her new novel First Day of My Life. It sounds good, I think I'll pre order it (and then forget about it, like I always do). 

At 6pm the last panel was with American authors! Clearly due to the time difference this was difficult to do, but it was fantastic to hear Neal Shusterman, Angie Thomas, Maggie Tokuda Hall, Patrick Ness, and Katherine Webber. They were all talking about their new books, all of which I want to buy immediately. It was a really fun and funny end to the panels. 

Lastly, at 7.30 Non Pratt held a quiz on YouTube. Lucinda and I made a team, and we did pretty okay! It was really fun. 

So! I had a really good weekend and I'm really glad that YALC made this happen. It was accessible for me as a disabled and autistic person when in person conferences aren't always accessible for me anymore. The technology was easy to use and worked well. The mixture of panels and panellists was great and a person with more brain bandwidth than me could probably have watched stuff ALL weekend and not got bored. It was nice to watch things with my friend so we could discuss what we'd seen together. 

If YALC can go ahead next year, I would really love it if they could do some kind of hybrid event where they could livestream panels and people like me could watch from home at the same time. The technology exists, and participants could still pay for tickets, only less than the in person ones, obviously. I really hope it's something that the organisers think about. It's the kind of thing that a post-Covid world needs to get on board with. Here's hoping!

YALC Swag

I didn't get to go to YALC this year. It was a combination of not having enough money and not having enough energy mentally or physically to go to London, stay over, go to the conference all day, and get home again. I'm hopeful that next year I might get there again, but I just couldn't this year.

All weekend, on Twitter, I kept seeing people having a great time, and I kept complaining to my partner that everyone was having a good time without me. I kept hearing about so many books that I wanted to buy or pre-order. I was having real Fear of Missing Out and I didn't like it one bit!

But then my lovely friend Kate came to my rescue and said that she had duplicates of a bunch of stuff that she'd picked up, and would I like it? I of course said yes, and a few days later a huge envelope of swag came dropping on to my doormat! I was overwhelmed by it all, and I need to go through it all and look up all the books that I haven't heard of to see if I'd like to buy them.

This is some samplers and badges, and a flash drive (does it have anything on it, I wonder), and the pink book is blank notebook. I am TOTALLY in love with the badges in the middle, they're Emery Lord badges about The Names They Gave Us and they are gorgeous. I'm intrigued to read the Holly Bourne sampler

More samplers. The white one is Clean by Juno Dawson, it's impossible to see here in the photo. I am really excited to read the Floored one, because I've heard SO much hype about this book, and the Paige Toon one will probably be pretty good too.

And here's a bunch of bookmarks and postcards. I'll put a couple of them up on my wall, and the others I might send to friends. I love the One Memory of Flora Banks bookmark. 

Thank you so much to Kate, I feel like I didn't totally miss out on YALC after all. 

Young Adult Lit Con 2016

Even though I said last year that I wanted to go to YALC for the whole weekend, I just wasn't sure if I'd be able to withstand it, so I just went on the Sunday. I went with two friends this year which was really lovely and also incredibly helpful for queuing!

We got the train on Saturday afternoon and got into Kings Cross, where we ate at Prezzo and had the rudest waiter ever (I've written a letter of complaint), but nice food. Then we got the tube to Earl's Court. I stayed near there last year and it was ideally placed from the Olympia, The hotel we stayed at wasn't the most luxurious, but it was cheap and it did the job. Mostly!

On Sunday morning we had planned to get a taxi to the Olympia but due to a cycling event they weren't available, so instead we went back to Earl's Court station and went just one stop to the Olympia stop in Kensington. You come out of the station and the Olympia is RIGHT THERE. We walked round the corner to the YALC entrance, got our wristbands, and went in.

Sam decided to go into the LFCC hall to look at the merchandise, so she headed there. Stacey wanted to orient herself, so she and I split up. I went into the first panel, which was New Voices in YA. I had planned to buy The Boy Who Drew the Future by Rhian Ivory, so I went to the Waterstones stall after the panel and bought that and The Square Root of Summer by Harriet Reuter Hapgood. I queued to get both books signed, and Rhian also gave me a poster!

Rhian Ivory

Harriet Reuter Hapgood

This is definitely going on my wall

And so is this, isn't it so gorgeous?

After this, I went to sit in the reading area for a while, and also wandered round some of the stalls. I had prepaped this year and had a wheeled suitcase with me with loads of space for books. I also signed up for the agent 1-2-1s which I did last year and which I felt a hundred times more prepared for this year, especially since my MA novel is finished!

At noon, Stacey and I both went into the panel featuring Frances Hardinge, Philip Reeve and Tanya Landman. It was really interesting and they were all fascinating to listen to. Afterwards, I bought Rail Head by Philip Reeve and I'd taken The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge to get signed. Stacey and I queued for quite a while in Frances' queue, but it was worth it! In the queue I met Kiran who wrote The Girl of Ink and Stars which I've got on Kindle, she was an absolute sweetheart too. 

Frances Hardinge drew geese 

Philip Reeve drew... Death? Himself? I'm not sure. I LOVED Mortal Engines so I'm hoping to like this, too

At 1pm it was time for the 1-2-1s so I headed there and was in the 2nd lot to be seen. I managed to speak to one of my preferred agents and she was lovely so I'll definitely be submitting my novel to her to see what she thinks. 

Sam watched the panel on Morally Complicated YA, but Stacey and I had missed the beginning so we decided to join the queue for Louise O'Neill. It was already quite long. We had lunch and made some friends in the queue. I had also already spoken to Michelle of Tales of Yesterday and Luna from Luna's Little Library (who I have a mutual good friend with and who I met briefly last year) and I can confirm they were both lovely too. 

Louise was really nice, and we had a good conversation about The Handmaid's Tale, which Only Ever Yours is supposed to be like. 

I may read this next!

By this point, the queue for Maggie Stiefvater's signing had already started, and got long, and Stacey had already managed to secure me a ticket for my place in the queue. I made the decision to not go into the panel, and I don't regret it. I think they're available to watch online so I will do that at my leisure as I'd love to see what Maggie had to say. 

I wandered round a bit and bought more books. Lots of publishers had deals on - 3 for £10, 2 for £10 and a free t-shirt, and even 5 for £10 which I took advantage of. Stacey is a teacher and picked up lots of samples for her classroom, and we both got free tote bags which are always good! We had made a base camp near the Maggie queue, and left things with Sam, who had bought lots of film merch and Star Wars fudge! 

I forgot to go to the Penguin stall and buy Blame by Simon Mayo, because I'm an idiot, but I'll definitely pick it up soon. Eventually it was time for my number in the Maggie queue (and I was lucky, I was high up) and I queued and queued and queued but EVENTUALLY I met Maggie and she was lovely and all was well. 

See how all the rest of the signings had finished?!

I took this copy of Blue Lily, Lily Blue as I borrowed the Dream Thieves and I only have the Raven Boys on Kindle, so it was the first paper copy I have! 

Here's the tote bags I got

Kiran was saying that her next book will probably have a similar cover, which is good news as it's beautiful

There were five different tote bags on this stall, I chose this one without knowing anything about her girls or the book, simply because I liked Sadie's hair! I will look into the books for sure.

By this point I was exhausted. It was around 4.30 and although there were other things happening, we had all had enough so we headed out and back to the tube station. The tube back to Earl's Court was really busy, and then we managed to get separated. Sam and I found each other but couldn't get hold of Stacey, so headed back to Kings Cross as that's where we all knew we were headed. I was really worried but was telling myself that Stacey is a grown woman and would be fine! We spoke to her at Kings Cross and decided to eat at Carluccio's over in St Pancras, and all met up there, thankfully!

Food and service were both really good at Carluccio's, and we still had time to wander around Kings Cross for a while before getting our train back to Wakefield at 8pm. We pulled in just after 10pm and Lee was there to meet me, bless him. I was very tired but very happy - it was a good day!

And here on Monday morning are alllll the books I bought, all seventeen of them!

I am so excited for Under Rose Tainted Skies, Girl <3 Girl, and If I Was Your Girl. The others are more of me taking a chance, but I bet I'll love them too. 

My tips for YALC

Last year I went to the Sunday of the Young Adult Lit Con and my review was one of the first posts on this blog! I had planned to go all weekend this year, but I wouldn't be able to handle it, so I'm going on the Sunday again with two of my bestest friends, Stacey and Sam. Last year I went by myself, so I'm looking forward to going with friends this year.

I've got some tips for the day, especially for people who may suffer from anxiety or chronic illness. I'll share this post on Twitter too.

- Prepare yourself. Get a good night's sleep, eat breakfast and have a drink before you get there

- The entry queue is different to the one for LFCC, it is round the left hand side of the building on Hammersmith Road. Don't join the main queue!

- There are lifts inside which will take you up to the floor where YALC is if stairs are difficult for you. Conserve your energy!

- Take a minute to orient yourself in the space, for what's going on where and where the loos are and stuff like that. Last year the main space was cordoned off and had plenty of exits/people coming in and out, and all the other spaces were dotted around the edges.

- Take a look at the schedule and decide which panels/workshops/etc interest you. Keep a rough idea of the times in your head (or write them down!) and check out what will happen in what space. It will lessen anxiety, and you will move better through the spaces. No one will mind if you slip out of one place early to get to another in your own time if that's something you need.

- You can take books that you already own for authors to sign, or you can buy them there. Authors won't mind signing ones you already own, I swear! Some queues have given out Post-It notes for you to write your name on, others won't. But, if you have an unusual name or an unusual spelling, do be ready to spell it out for the author. You want your inscription to be right!

- There will be cosplayers around and they will look amazing - last year I saw 4 young Muslim girls, all wearing hijab, dressed as each Harry Potter house. Many cosplayers will agree if you ask to take their photo, but please don't take their photo without their permission. It's creepy and unfair.

- You WILL need a bag or bags if you take books or are planning to buy books. Last year I had two tote bags but they were far too heavy for me by the end of the day, so this year I'm packing everything into a wheeled suitcase.

- I will however take an across the body bag where I can keep things that I'll need quickly, like my phone, a bottle of water (an absolute necessity), some cash, my book/tablet, maybe a notebook too.

- Some bookstalls accepted cash and others didn't. As I recall, the food place didn't take card, so cash was needed. I would recommend taking some at least.

- Last year I bought lunch from the cafe in the same space as YALC, but it was crowded, the queue was huge, and the food wasn't that good. This year I'm planning to leave the Olympia and find food close by. You can also take your own food in, don't feel like you can't.

- Take some water or another drink because you will need to keep hydrated.

- If everything is getting overwhelming, or you're tired, do take quarter of an hour to sit in the reading area and just chill out. There were some chairs, and cushions to sit on the floor. Do take a book and just breathe. You can stay there all day if you like.

- I believe that your YALC ticket lets you into part of LFCC, which is downstairs in another part of the building. If that's your thing, do go and have a look. I think I saw people last year had bought Harry Potter merch down there.

- As the con was coming to a close on Sunday afternoon, some publishers started doing deals on their books like 3 for £10 or even 2 for £5. If you're around at this point I'd recommend searching out some deals!

- Do talk to people. Everyone will be the nicest people you'll ever meet and you're all there for the love of YA literature. Come and talk to me! I look like this and I'll be wearing a patterned dress most probably. I have visible tattoos on my arms. I think there's a plan for people to tweet/instagram photos of themselves on each day of the con with the hashtag #YALCselfie so that other people know what they're wearing - I'll try to do this too.

- I bought some business cards for this year to give to people. They have my Twitter handle on them and the address of this blog. I plan on foisting them on everyone!

- Finally, try to thoroughly enjoy yourself. Listen to authors, go to a workshop, make some new friends. Buy some books, learn some new books, meet someone whose book you've loved.

- Go home and rest and maybe stroke your new books a bit... Or is that just me?

See you Sunday!

Young Adult Literature Conference 2015

On Sunday 19th July I went to YALC, the Young Adult Literature Conference. It was part of London Film and Comic Con and was running for the second year. I couldn't go all weekend, but Sunday was filled with lots of interesting panels for me, anyway.

I'll start at the beginning. I don't really like London, or trains, or hotels by myself, or crowds, or anything associated with this kind of thing! But I still did it, and I read this post by Jess Hearts Books which helped a lot. I was also asking my friend Lucinda (who was there all weekend) what it was like. I got the train from Sheffield to St Pancras on Saturday evening, then got the tube to Earl's Court. The hotel I'd booked was clean enough, although basic, and had been cheap (£53 for a single room). In the morning, I got a taxi to the Olympia and went to the YALC queue, which was apart from the main LFCC queue.

I got in, swapped my eTicket for a wristband, and got into the lift to go to the YALC floor. It was around 10.25, so I went straight into the main area for the first panel. The event was all in one room, with screens to make different areas. The main area had around 800 seats, but for the first panel only around 200 were taken.

The main area for panels

The panel was on Mental Health issues in YA. Having struggled with mental health issues since I was 8, it's definitely something that I write into my own work. It was nice to see Annabel Pitcher on the panel and hear about her new book Silence is Goldfish - she's from the same area as me and we have mutual friends - I spoke to her later in the day.

The next panel was led by James Dawson and was about sex in YA literature. I really enjoyed listening to different opinions, and some comments on how it isn't always librarians or schools that ban books, but usually pressure from parents. I also appreciated that James gave a trigger warning before the panel started, as it included discussion of rape and sexual assault. That's a good way to keep people safe.

The reading area books!

I sat in the reading corner for a while with some friends, and then I got some lunch and listened to part of the panel on Troubled Teens. I was sitting further back in the main area by this point, and I have to say it was sometimes hard to hear what was being said. I need to feedback to YALC on this point, actually.

At 1pm I went to talk to an agent about my work, which was really positive - next year I hope to be pitching a book to one!

The LGBT in YA panel was next, and it was interesting, but it needed more intersectionality. I did like Den Patrick's point that LGBTQ+ people have always existed and therefore deserve to be found in fantasy (which often takes its inspiration from medieval England).

After that I was really tired, so I just hung out for the rest of the day. There was definitely enough space to do that though, which is part of what made it so good for me. I spent a lot of time at the bookstalls, and as it was coming to the close of the con, I managed to get some real bargains! I recommend sticking around for this if you can!

In this picture you can see all the books that I got. All of the Above is a chapter sample booklet thing, and I got some bookmarks too. I bought Music and Lies just as we were leaving - it's about a music festival so right up my street. I'll be reviewing it soon. The next two I got free thanks to a friend of Lucinda's. Twist is a modern retelling of Oliver Twist. Under My Skin I bought after the LGBT panel so that James could sign it for me. I bought The House of Silk as I've never read anything by Anthony Horowitz and it was reduced to £2. I enjoyed We Were Liars by E Lockhart so picked up these two new ones. When I Was Me looked interesting and was also reduced, and Malala's story is definitely something I'm interested in. Quite a nice little haul I think!

I can't wait until next year; I'll definitely go all weekend!