The week has arrived! It is finally the time of year us UKYA fans have been waiting for – YALC is finally upon us (or at least it will be in a few days!). And with the excitement comes much preparation and reading.

I posted a YALC TBR a little while ago and I’ve made some progress with it but also accepted that I will never read everything I wanted to before Friday. This is okay though! I’m sure I will do PLENTY of reading throughout the weekend, especially as I’ll be staying with two of my favourite bookish people.

As well as being super excited to see my bookish friends and getting to meet lots of them for the first time, I’m SO excited to see all the authors who are attending. There are so many that I am excited to meet for the first time and also some that I’m excited to see again. Some of the authors I’m most looking forward to seeing/meeting are: Katie Webber (Wing Jones), Melinda Salisbury (The Sin Eater’s Daughter trilogy), Sara Barnard (A Quiet Kind of Thunder/Beautiful Broken Things), Alwyn Hamilton (Rebel of the Sands trilogy), Laini Taylor (Strange the Dreamer / ADOSAB trilogy), V E Schwab (Queen of my heart aka writer of all things magical), Will Hill (After the Fire), Lisa Heathfield (Flight of a Starling / Seed / Paper Butterflies), Juno Dawson (Margot & Me), Patrick Ness (Release / A Monster Calls), Rachael Lucas (The State of Grace), Karen Gregory (Countless), Harriet Springbett (Tree Magic), Carlie Sorosiak (If Birds Fly Back), Non Pratt (Truth or Dare) and SO SO many more. Honestly the list could go on ALL day but then we wouldn’t get to the schedule!

My YALC Schedule!

Luckily I am able to go to all three days of YALC and I’ll be staying with some of my favourite bookish people from Thursday-Monday. This means I should be able to get the full YALC experience and I’m sure it will be a big bookish dream! Without further ado, here are the panels/workshops I’m planning to attend, if possible I may squeeze in some extras. Click on the pictures to go to the full schedule if you’re interested to see everything that’s going on!

Panels:

• Heroines: Melinda Salisbury, Alwyn Hamilton, Amy Alward, Laure Eve, Sophie Bennett. Chaired by: Anna James
• Writing What You Know: Alex Wheatle, Lisa Williamson, Rachael Lucas, Lisa Heathfield, Hannah Witton. Chaired by: Katherine Webber

(There are a couple of others I have my eye on but will depend on signings / general overwhelmed feeling that may happen on Day 1!)

Panels:

• New Voices 1: Alice Broadway, Gemma Fowler, Carlie Sorosiak, Vic James, Karen M. McManus, Ed McDonald, Josh Martin, Hayley Barker. Chaired by: Katherine Webber
• Myth, Magic and Fairy-tale: Joanne Harris, Julia Gray, Laura Dockrill, Zoe Marriott, Deirdre Sullivan, Peadar O’Guilin. Chaired by: Imogen Russell Williams
• Laini Taylor: Chaired by: Katherine Webber
• The Books That Made Me: V. E. Schwab, Laini Taylor, Joanne Harris. Chaired by: Katherine Woodfine

Workshops:

• Books to Bags with Melinda Salisbury

Panels:

• New Voices 2: Anna Day, Catherine Barter, Penny Joelson, Simon James Green, Orlagh Collins, Karen Gregory, Cecilia Vinesse, Sarah Carroll, Harriet Springbett, Tamsin Winter. Chaired by: Katherine Webber
• Fandom: Maggie Harcourt, Anna Day, Chris Russell, Rebecca Denton. Chaired by: Lucy Saxon
• Life Advice: Hannah Witton, Sara Barnard, Holly Bourne, Gemma Cairney. Chaired by: Chelsey Pippin
• Patrick Ness: Chaired by: Juno Dawson

And there we have a sneaky (manic) view of what I’m hoping to achieve this weekend! If I manage to see everything above then I’ll be incredibly happy. I also plan on taking a load of books with me to get signed and I’m going to ask authors to sign in my journal on a YALC spread if they don’t mind! I thought it would be the perfect way to keep those memories all in one place.

There have already been lots of exciting announcements about books and proofs that will be available this weekend and I’m super excited to just make the most of everything. I’ll also be going to QuizYA on Friday evening to take part in a quiz hosted by the lovely Non Pratt to raise money for charity. We have author team captains and I’m excited to find out whose team I’ll be on!

There will be plenty more to come from me about YALC over the next few weeks in wrap up posts and hauls but if you want to follow the journey with me then I recommend following me over on Twitter where I will undoubtedly be sharing the whole time! You can find me @kellysrambles.

Are you going to be at YALC? I’d love to meet you!

What are your biggest tips to people attending YALC for the first time?

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