Boston Teen Author Festival Recap

Yes I know I’m about two months too late for this recap, but you still want to know what I did at the Boston Teen Author Festival right? I’m going to pretend a whole bunch of you raised your hands and are now eating popcorn with me. If I had any.

Schedule

9:30 – Doors Open

10:15-10:45 – Intro Panel

11:00-11:45 – Session One

To Be Continued – Session 1 (11-11:45) – CPL Lecture Hall
Panelists: Sasha Alsberg, Julie C. Dao, Gabe (Ava Jae), Kiersten White
Moderator: Patrice Caldwell

OMG This panel was amazing and Patrice is such a phenomenal moderator. Like I will never get over how good a moderator Patrice is. I think I’ve seen her moderate about four or five events and each of them have been so memorable. She just has a way of getting authors to open up, being genuinely passionate about the books, and incredibly enthusiastic. It’s always a true joy to watch her. Not to mention almost all of these authors were new to me, except my OG Julie C. Dao who I saw last year too! I love when author repeat. I wish Traci Chee had been there too, but my heart couldn’t be that lucky.

But this panel made me truly appreciate how much work goes into sequels. How much care, forethought, mistakes, and happy accidents go into series. It also made me need to read Ava Jae and Kiersten White. Yes I know you’re all like, “but you read THE DARK DESCENT and haven’t you read any more?!” and I’ll say nope. I’m not going to lie, DARK DESCENT bewitched me with the FRANKENSTEIN references, so that was the easiest of all sells to make.

But you know I’m going to be reading more now. Especially after seeing Kiersten talk more about ‘

12:00-12:45 – Session Two

Timey Wimey – Session 2 (12-12:45) – CPL Lecture Hall
​Panelists: Sara Holland, Tiffany D. Jackson, Claire Legrand, Nova Ren Suma
Moderator: Rebecca Wells

You know I couldn’t skip a panel called Timey Wimey. I would see a panel with Doctor Who references and about the manipulation of time of books. My MVP of this panel was Claire Legrand who had an answer ready for almost every question and was just genuinely so excited to be there. But the whole panel was so great because I had read a book from everyone in this panel. Which is a huge difference from last panel which was just 1/2. So I felt more accomplished than before. I gave myself a pat on the back

1:00-1:45 – Lunch Break

2:00-2:45 – Session Three

Sorry, Not Sorry – Session 3 (2-2:45) – CPL Lecture Hall
Panelists: Julie C. Dao, Claire Legrand, Lygia Day Peñaflor, Kiersten White
Moderator: Rachel Strolle

This was MY FAVORITE PANEL. Major MVP to Lygia Day Peñaflor who brought ALL the heat. Seriously. If you haven’t read my review of All of This is True take a break and come back to this. Lygia brought so many fabulous quotes about ‘unlikeable’ girls and how it’s just basically a huge mind conspiracy and patriarchy trying to shut down girl heroines. Like my mind still gets blown thinking about how fantastic this panel was. It had all the MVPs of all time here really. Let’s always talk about unlikeable heroines because they are, hands down, my favorite.

3:00-3:45 – Session Four {SKIPPED TO GET IN LINE}

(After that last panel I knew it wouldn’t get better than that)

4:00-5:00 – Signing

Even though I didn’t have that many books from “the big authors” it still took so long. Like 40 minutes or so to get all my books signed. That being said, I did have a bunch I wanted to get signed (and ton that were for 2k Twitter giveaway), but they weren’t from the typical Holly Blacks or Kiersten Whites. Which had giant lines. The largest were those, Claire Legrand, Miranda Lo, and Mary Pearson. There were a few lines where I could get in without trouble, but only having an hour was pretty difficult. If I didn’t get in line that early, I never would have finished.

** Also this year there were enamel pins. And they were gorgeous**

Advice if you want to come in 2019

First off, if you can, definitely do go because it’s always such a fun time. I have been twice and backed them on Kickstarter. So you can say I’m pretty much obsessed. But plan out what books you want to buy and what books you are going to bring way ahead of time. I find this is really helpful to figure out how I want to pack.  Secondly, figure out early how you are going to get there. I normally drive because I’ve had awful experiences with the bus to Boston and the trains were always late/didn’t work with my schedule. So figure out if you want to carpool or something way earlier. And Third, do your research on the panels and authors beforehand. That way you can figure out if you want to a TBR beforehand. This year BTAF did a fun bingo board with fun prizes to help you, look out for something like that next year!

Discussion

Have you ever been to a book festival/event before? Which one?

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