YALC (Young Adult Literature Convention) is the UK’s first young adult book festival. You could say it’s the UK’s equivalent of BookCon and BookExpo. Every year book lovers from all over the UK gather in London at the end of July for a weekend of bookish fun. Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, 2020 will be a year without YALC and as expected, it’s left a lot of us disappointed.
UKYABA’s are still going ahead this year and they have encouraged book bloggers and shortlistees to spread some YALC love through their blog posts this month. Realising that YALC isn’t taking place this year has made me reminiscent of the years past, so I thought it’d be a grand idea to create a post of my personal favourite memories.
Incoming soppy-ness! This year I was nominated for UKYABA’s most Inspirational award and I’d like to say a massive THANK YOU to everyone who took the time to click on my name and press that ‘vote’ button. I’ve been on the book community for 6 years now and it’s the best thing I’ve truly ever been a part of, and for my blog and bookstagram to be acknowledged like this has meant the absolute world to me.
Now, let’s reminisce about YALC together, shall we?
Reuniting with friends
This is by far my favourite part about YALC! Being in the online book community, you will have a lot of friends that you only get to see once a year at YALC. The excitement of knowing you’ll be seeing your friends for three days straight in and out of the convention is just a feeling that I don’t get tired of.
And it’s guaranteed that you’ll probably leave YALC with even more friends, because you’re constantly meeting new people with one massive shared interest; books!
Books Books Books
We can’t talk about YALC and not mention books. It’s one of the big reasons why we’re all there in the first place. I’m listing this as books are involved in a lot of my favourite memories; discovering new upcoming releases, rushing for/participating in arc drop activities.
One of my favourite activities involving books was when Hodderscape set up a bookstagram station at their booth and allowed attendees to take pictures of some of their upcoming releases. They then chose winners to receive the books! I’ve never won it, but I still had a blast participating!
Meeting the Publishers
I absolutely adore taking the time to explore the publisher’s booths at YALC. Often at YALC, you’ll come across publishers you might have received books from before and it’s lovely to meet the people behind the marketing and book promotions.
Meeting Authors
Meeting authors is always going to be a top memory for me and it’s one of the best parts of being at YALC, getting to meet the creators behind the stories we’ve fallen in love with.
One of my favourite memories of meeting an author for the first time was when I met Samantha Shannon, author of The Bone Season series. I was incredibly nervous, but meeting her is one of my all time favourite YALC memories to date!
Some other authors I loved meeting at YALC were; Maggie Stiefvater, VE Schwab, Adrienne Young and Laini Taylor.
Celebrity Spotting
If you attend YALC every year then you know that it’s not uncommon to see Celebrities out and about on their way down to their signings and photo sessions at Comic Con. Between waiting on signings with authors, we would sit and have lunch around the main part of the hall on the off chance that we’d see some celebrities pass by.
You’ll also see them walking around whilst you’re going about your busy YALC business.
In the years I’ve been attending YALC, with friends, we’ve…
- Been in an elevator with Natalie Dormer *silently fangirls*
- Spotted Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Wesley, and Jason Mamoa multiple times (Jason waved!)
- Had a conversation with Peter Capaldi (You can see me freaking out in the picture below)
Shenanigans and making memories
I have to say, some of my favourite memories about YALC are making the memories themselves and the activities that take place inside or outside the convention hall, whether that’s taking a lot of selfies with friends, going to dinner with friends, visiting bookstores around London, etc.
One memory that always puts a smile on my face is from YALC 2019 when I was attending with Fairyloot to help at their booth. Many of my friends started a ‘photograph Lauren off guard’ trend and posted them on Twitter for me to see later. To this day, I’m still not entirely sure what brought this idea on, but it makes me smile and laugh whenever I think about it and that’s the main thing!
You can see the unflattering results of this below, because why not embarrass myself further?
Hope you’ve enjoyed reminiscing about YALC with me! I’m still feeling very sad that we’ll have a year without it, but it just makes me even more excited for YALC 2021.
Bring. It. On.
☾
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