Is it 2017 yet? Because I’m ready to once again drown myself in books and brethren at my favorite book festival to date: YALLWEST.
The second annual YALLWEST book festival happened in Santa Monica, California this weekend, and as young as the festival still is, it’s still one of the most entertaining, best organized book festivals around. Best of all, started by YA superstar authors Margaret Stohl and Melissa de la Cruz: it’s one of the only book festivals that shines the light on YA.
Fierce Friday
YALLWEST 2016 kicked off with Fierce Friday on April 30 at the Santa Monica Public Library. Fierce Friday featured food trucks and author karaoke to pass the time, but the main event was really the author signings. I cannot recommend Fierce Friday enough for fans who are planning on getting their books signed throughout the weekend anyway. The lines were long, but manageable, and I got all of my books signed and some great face time with the two authors I had shown up to see, Marie Rutkoski and Leigh Bardugo. It was a great way of guaranteeing that amidst all the hullabaloo of the weekend panels I would still have at least two authors’ signatures (and maybe more importantly, seven less books to carry around on Saturday!!)
Scheduling
Because I can be a little bit of a neurotic ninny sometimes, I of course showed up to the main event on Saturday with a detailed panel spreadsheet that would have made even time-traveling Hermione proud. And while I definitely take it a little overboard on the crazy (I just love books so much, you guys!!), I DEFINITELY suggest that true YA book lovers take a look at the schedule ahead of time to get a feel for just how much programming is going on, lest you show up Saturday morning and feel overwhelmed by the abundance of riches.
Food Trucks
Showing up at Santa Monica High School on Saturday morning, first up on my very-detailed-schedule was brunch to ensure that both 1) my super extreme panel schedule would go on uninterrupted and 2) the food truck lines would be nonexistent. While the food trucks are truly delicious (this year alone I tried out the pizza, pudding, hot dog, and tater tot trucks!), their lines can get VERY long at lunchtime, so on Saturday I would recommend either heading to the trucks straight as the festival opens (like I did), or channeling your inner Dalai Lama to patiently expect a forty-five minute wait for In-N-Out. Sunday on the other hand was significantly less crowded, and I was chowing down on my cheesy tots in under fifteen minutes during the prime lunchtime rush hour.
Signings
Speaking of lines, I have to give major props this year to the festival committee’s awesome organizing skills. The lines to both panels and author signing were significantly more manageable than in YALLWEST’s first year. (The swag booths set up by advertisers and promoters less so — seriously, my friend waited 40 minutes in line to score a pencil from FREEFORM.)
When it came to signings, the lines went very quickly, but I still felt like I got to interact and share a special moment with the authors. I got The Forbidden Wish signed by the super sweet Jessica Khoury just in time for Hypable’s book review that came out last week (everybody go read this awesome book!!), but the real highlight was meeting my childhood fave Shannon Hale. I’ve written before for Hypable how Shannon Hale’s Enna Burning changed my young tween life, so it’s not entirely surprising that I hauled along FIVE books for this poor woman to sign, including my O.G. first edition of Princess Academy (I know, I know! I’m so old!!). She was wonderful by the way, and her husband, author Dean Hale, who was sitting beside her was also a hoot. Authors are the best humans, amiright?
Panels
Speaking of authors being the best humans, the author-hosted panels throughout the weekend were all at once entertaining, educational, and inspiring. On the educational side, Saturday’s Get a Job in Storytelling panel provided practical information for how to break into publishing (basically: BE BRAVE), while panels like Sunday’s Creative Life & Writing Advice author panel provided emotional advice on how to handle the writing life. On a personal note, as a writer who often struggles with perfectionism, I found Sunday’s First Draft to Final Draft panel to be particularly moving (sometimes it’s okay to suck, guys!), but as a Hypable writer and #HPfan5eva (Slytherins are the best of all worlds, sorry dudez), my favorite panel of the weekend by far was called Harry Potter is Lyfe, hosted by Veronica Roth, who yes, bears an uncommon resemblance to Draco Malfoy.
To be honest, most of the time I can’t stand sitting in on Harry Potter panels because as a True Fan I can’t handle the basic Beckys that think they know what’s up because they saw the movie once in 2009 (but have never had their heart crushed by a Pottermore Sorting, or understand that Sirius/Remus is fan canon), BUT this Harry Potter panel singlehandedly changed my mind. It was so fun listening to our favorite authors fangirl over our favorite fandom, and I’ve got to say that when it comes to Harry Potter, these guys really know their stuff. At one point, Adam Silvera accidentally killed Hedwig, but no worries, Veronica Roth nursed her back to health. And somehow, by the end of the panel, Leigh Bardugo had managed to convert half the panel into Slytherins (like I said, it’s the best house…)
The festival concluded with the ridiculously energizing YA Storymob Finale — an event in which the audience helped Veronica Roth, Ransom Riggs, and Victoria Aveyard write a combined fan fiction based on their own books. At this point, it’s still kind of a haze of brilliance in my memory, and I couldn’t really tell you what exactly happened, except that overall it was laugh out loud hilarious, and at some point there was an Exploding Poop Disorder involved…
Y’all means All
At the end of the day, despite 20,000 people showing up at Santa Monica High School over the weekend, YALLWEST still somehow managed to feel like an intimate event of fans and friends. The focus on the ALL in YALLWEST was particularly poignant, and while so many book festivals feel exclusive to the privileged, YALLWEST’s partnership with the LA Unified school districts ensured that inner-city students had the opportunity to engage with authors, at the same time providing free transportation, lunch, and books to qualifying students.
YALLWEST’s commitment to LGBTQIA kids was on full display as the festival’s 2016 shirts read Y’ALL MEANS ALL in rainbow letters in response to the recent anti-trans bathroom laws being passed around the country. Panels in support of LGBTQIA teens went on throughout the weekend, including a cookie hangout with David Levithan on Saturday. Diversity in YA managed to be on full display the entire weekend in a wonderfully low-key way that made me hope we might actually be seeing real change in the way people recognize the importance of diversity in children’s literature. Almost all of the panels I attended featured at least one, and often several authors of color, including Sunday’s Keynote with this year’s festival co-chairs — the super sweet and crazy-cool fashion superstars Tahereh Mafi and Marie Lu.