Book Events & Blog Events

YAB Fest 2013 Recap!

This past Saturday I went to the first YAB Fest (Young Adult Book Festival), held in Round Rock (near Austin), Texas. There were tons of awesome authors, and while the turnout wasn’t as big as some of the other author events I’ve been to, I still had a fantastic time.

I volunteered at the event, and got to hang out a bit with some of the authors, met some of the other volunteers and some other bloggers, and made some great new friends.  Since I was volunteering, I didn’t get to go to all of the panels, but I did go to a couple and they were awesome!  And you know I had to buy some books and get them signed!


Those are all the pretties I bought and had signed at the festival, plus my very first physical book (The Charge) given to me for a review!  I’ve won ARCs before and I’ve been given eARCs and review books via my Kindle, but I’ve never actually been given a physical book for review before, so I’m very excited about that!  (Thanks so much to author Sharon Bayliss!)

I also took a couple of my own books to have signed and here’s a picture of those:


I was super, super excited to meet some of the authors at the festival and I tried to keep my fangirling to a minimum, although I’m not sure if I succeeded.  And why is it that I never even think to make sure my hair looks okay before I take a photo with an author?  Here are some photos of me and some of those authors I was excited to meet, with my hair just kind of doing its own thing… Yeesh.

With David Levithan 

With Kiera Cass

With Victoria Scott and Rachel Harris

So, yeah, that one piece of my hair was just hanging out, looking all dumb for ALL of my pictures.  Thanks, hair.  And in that shot with Kiera Cass, I’m looking down!  Argh.  I am horrible at being photographed.

ANYWAY, I still had a fantastic time and loved volunteering.  I’ll definitely try to make it to the second YAB Fest next year!  Thanks so much to all the authors who came, and all the organizers and other volunteers and readers who made this thing happen!
  

5 Comments

  1. Kimberly @ On the Wings of Books

    May 13, 2013 at 11:52 pm

    Is that a signed copy of Ready Player One? Cause I just might hate you for that. ;)

  2. Sharon Bayliss

    May 14, 2013 at 2:17 am

    It was great to meet you! I'm glad you're excited about your physical copy of The Charge. :)

  3. fakesteph

    May 14, 2013 at 3:07 am

    I think your hair looks fun! Can't wait to see it in person. :):)

  4. Kate Midnight Book Girl

    May 19, 2013 at 7:42 pm

    First congrats on getting your first physical review book!!! And I love that you volunteered to help out at the festival, maybe I'll look into doing that with the Washington DC book festival.

    Looks like you had a blast, and you got some wonderful books!!

    Wait, was Ernest Cline there? Is he hot in a nerdish way?

  5. Sarah

    May 22, 2013 at 10:21 pm

    I got an ARC out of nowhere like a year, year and a half ago – it was Burn for Burn by Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian. It was like Christmas – I was so excited!

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