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Celebrating “Harry Potter” and YA Books at YALC

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It was a busy weekend for Harry Potter and Young Adult book lovers at the UK’s Young Adult Literature Convention (YALC), hosted at London’s Film and Comic Con. YALC is now in its third year, with authors Katherine Webber and Katherine Woodfine coordinating the three-day convention in association with charity BookTrust and London Film and Comic Con.

The program kicked off on Friday, July 29, with a day packed full with events. There is so much going on at YALC with a jam-packed scheduled of panels, workshops, agent arena events, and signings, that it can be hard to pick what to go to! It’s impossible, without the use of a Time-Turner, to get to everything, so choices have to be made. It’s great there’s such a diverse range of events over the weekend – there really is something for everyone.

Here are some of my panel and workshop highlights.

Patrick Ness – A Monster Calls

Author Patrick Ness was in conversation with Sarah Shaffi and young actor Lewis MacDougall, who stars in the upcoming adaptation of Ness’s novel, A Monster Calls. This was a great insight into the making of the film and the way that the book was brought to life by the creative team. The audience was also shown a trailer for the film, whetting our appetites until the film comes out (fall in the US and New Year’s Day in the UK).

 

 

Natasha Ferrant – “Re-imagining the Classics” workshop

This workshop gave us a chance to think about classics we love in a different way and focus on the characters whose stories aren’t told and should be given a chance to tell their side of the story. It was great fun to see what characters everyone came up with – there was a wide range of characters discussed from Argus Filch and Ginny Weasley to the witch in Hansel and Gretel.

#SquadGoals: Friendship in YA

This was a fantastic panel featuring a range of YA authors talking about female friendships in their books and the importance of representing these in fiction. This was an inspiring panel, complete with an all-important poll to see how many members of the audience were Team Taylor and who was Team Kardashian! There was also plenty of discussion on feminism and lots of embarrassing stories shared.

You Know Me Well

A jet-lagged David Levithan and Nina LaCour took to the stage to talk about their recently released collaboration, You Know Me Well. This was an inspiring panel, with talk about what inspired the book, San Francisco pride week, LGBT YA fiction, and much more.

YALC Poetry Slam

This was a new event for YALC and represented a range of YA authors and audience members who had signed up to take part by reading their own poetry. The range of poetry on offer was remarkable, and some of the first-time readers wowed the audience with their poised performances.

Meredith Miller and Danielle Zigner

This was a great discussion between an author and her agent about the process of taking a book from an early draft to publication. It was clear that there was a fantastic relationship between Meredith and Danielle, and they were both very open and honest and willing to answer many questions from the engaged audience.

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On Sunday, July 31, it was great to see everyone embracing the Harry Potter theme, celebrating the Boy Who Lived’s birthday, and taking part in MuggleNet’s Harry Potter Party, a day jam-packed with activities. There were many activities going on throughout the day, including Potions Making with YA author Melinda Salisbury and hunt the Snitches and fantastic beasts, which were hidden around the YALC floor.

We also had a What Harry Means to Us wall, which was completely covered in messages by the end of the weekend and showcased all the reasons why we fell in love with Harry.

The day concluded with our Potter party on the main stage, with some party games, a cosplay competition (complete with a special guest), and a quiz.

 

The weekend ended with the awarding of the annual House Cup, which was shared between Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw.

Congratulations, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw! Until next year, then… who will claim the cup in 2017?

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Overall, the weekend was incredibly inspiring. It’s so great to see book lovers out in force, celebrating everything they love about reading and writing. It was clear to see that YALC is one big community, full of a diverse range of people who love books and want to celebrate that.

Were you at YALC? What was your highlight of the weekend? Let us know in the comments!