YALC 2018 Recap

YALC (Young Adult Literary Convention) is a convention held along with the Showmasters London Film and Comic Con at the Olympia Exhibition Centre.

This year was the fifth YALC and my fourth year attending.

Here's a recap of my time at YALC.

(Embarrasingly, I can't remember that much about the panels so I apologise in advance at how brief my notes are!). 

Every year at YALC there is a wall of books.

In previous years there were actual books hanging on a wall, but this year there were huge spines lined up along the wall which I thought was pretty cool.

My book haul this year is small compared to previous years...
 

I bought copies of all of these books at YALC. I picked up Sweet Black Waves in the sale on Sunday for only £5 and it's signed!

 

I got Orphan Monster Spy and After the Fire from the book swap. Penguin were giving away Class of 2018/2019 Yearbooks which have excerpts from books that have/are coming out this year and next year. I think these are a really good idea and I'm looking forward to reading it. The pages are sprayed black.  
 

Here's what I got up to . . .

FRIDAY

11am - Look at the Industry

Annalie Grainger, Beth Garrod, Chloe Coles and Chloe Seager

This panel was pretty interesting. The panelists spoke about their jobs in the publishing industry.

1pm - Centenary of the Women's Vote

Alwyn Hamilton, Katherine Webber, Sally Nicholls and Sheena Wilkinson 

This panel was mainly about feminism - books with characters that the authors liked and characters the authors would have made feminists in books they've read.

2pm - Tale as Old as Time

Deirdre Sullivan, Kristina Perez, Louise O'Neill, Mary Watson and Melissa Albert

This panel was about fairytales. The authors spoke about what fairytales they would like to retell or see retold.

I got books signed by Katherine Webber and Alwyn Hamilton.

Katherine Webber's book Only Love Can Break Your Heart was being sold early at Waterstone's so I just HAD to buy a copy. I really enjoyed Wing Jones.

SATURDAY
 

10am - Growing Up In The Past

Frances Hardinge, Keren David, Laura Wood and Lucy Adlington

The authors spoke about their books and the research they did for them.

 

11am - Politics on the Page

Alice Skinner, Karen Gregory, Sarah Shaffi, Tom Pollock, Tomi Adeyemi and Yaba Badoe

I can't actually remember that much about this panel but I do remember Tomi Adeyemi saying that she originally had two story ideas and that she combined them to write Children of Blood and Bone.

 

1pm - Amongst the Stars

Becky Chambers, Lauren James, Samantha Shannon and Sasha Alsberg

Some of the authors spoke about how they try to make the science in their books believable/realistic. Lauren James said that she got the idea for her book The Loneliest Girl in the Universe from a university coursework question.

2pm - Giovanna and Tom Fletcher in Conversation

 Giovanna and Tom Fletcher I really enjoyed this panel. It was interesting to hear how Tom and Gi co-write and they are so cute together.






I got books signed by Giovanna Fletcher for a friend and I got A Sky Painted Gold by Laura Wood signed. I'd had a Twitter conversation with Laura months ago and she recognised the profile pic on the lanyard I was wearing and remembered me! It was so surreal and I'm still shocked by it. I feel like a proper blogger now! :)
 

 


SUNDAY  

I didn't go to any panels of signings on Sunday but I went to my first event in the Agent Arena.  

11am - Editing Workshop Practise your editing skills with agent Sandra Sawicka
 I picked up some useful tips at this but it was a bit disappointing.


  I spent most of Sunday on the Comic-Con floor where I met Rose McIver (who plays the main character Liv Moore in iZombie) and Jewel Staite (who was Kaylee in Firefly). They were both lovely and after meeting Jewel, I know have three autographs in my Firefly dictionary :)
 

 


I picked up loooaadddss of swag and am planning to do a giveaway of some of it soon.
 

 


I really enjoyed YALC (as usual). The giveaways were definitely a lot better organised this year (last year it was a bit of a free-for-all). The goodie bags were very disappointing - in the past they have been given out on a Friday and they've had bits of swag in, but this year they were given out on the Sunday and there was only a booklet and a couple of bits of swag. I got to meet two bloggers that I've talked to online which was really cool. That's another thing ticked off my book blogger bucket list :)



  Did you go to YALC?  
What was your favourite part?