My YALC Highlights

The weekend before last I went to the first ever Young Adult Literature Convention and my first Comic Con. I could tell you about the sweltering heat on Saturday, the twenty-minute queues to buy a bottle of water, the fear of not finding a single blogger as I approached the mass of people at Earl’s Court, but to be honest, you’ve probably already reads that three times. So instead I’m going to give you my favourite bits of YALC. Enjoy!

- Getting to spend time with friends (of the blogger, author and publisher variety) that I haven’t seen in years.

- The ‘I’m Too Sexy For This Book’ panel starring Cat Clarke, Non Pratt, Beth Reekles and chaired by James Dawson. Easily the best panel of the convention – hilarious and open and interesting.

- Malorie Blackman opening the convention in Klingon and wearing a cape.

- The costumes. The time and effort and suffocating heat of those costumes blew me away. Worth a trip to Comic Con just to see them!

- The Blogger’s Brunch on Sunday featuring Matt Haig, Non Pratt, James Dawson and

- All of the hugs. I don’t think I’ve ever hugged and been hugged that many times in two days before... except graduation maybe.

- Managing to edge into the epic Rainbow Rowell queues just as it ended. I do love skipping a queue by sheer luck.

- The Art of Blogging workshop, featuring Natasha Ngan, Sanne Vliegenthart (Books&Quills and Hot Key Books), Holly Bourne and chaired by Kat McKenna of Macmillan. Really interesting to hear about blogging from different avenues and directions.

- Meeting Meg Rosoff and Sarra Manning again – my heroes.

- Spotting SableCaught, a booktuber I love.

- Finally meeting Tanya Byrne and Lucy Christopher. It’s been a long time coming.

- The atmosphere. The excitement. The enthusiasm. The passion.

- The overwhelming agreement that Malorie Blackman is Queen and that YALC needs to happen again next year.

Sophie