On Saturday I had the good fortune to be able to attend the fifth annual Anderson's Bookshop YA Literature Conference.
Oh, my.
It was a BLAST!
A great, friendly group of people who love YA literature (including teachers, librarians, booksellers, and authors) gathered in Naperville. I attended sessions about writing fantasy, new voices in YA lit, and researching for novels. They were all fantastic, as were all the talks given by authors.
We had the privilege of hearing Suzanne Collins, Ellen Klages, Nancy Werlin, Holly Black, John Stokes, and Caroline B. Cooney speak. At the new voices panel I also heard Ingrid Law, Paula Yoo, and Cameron Tuttle. I bought tons of books and had them signed (woo!). All the authors were super nice, hilarious, and basically awesome. Paula Yoo played the violin for us. Suzanne Collins has a mockingbird necklace that a Naperville school had specially made for her (how sweet!). Nancy Werlin gave a quite touching talk about why her new book Impossible is close to her heart.
I even won a door prize!
It was an awesome, fun day and if you ever get the chance to go, I highly recommend it. It was well worth the conference fee. Anderson's has a children's lit event in February and I'm already planning on attending!