YallWest: What is it & Should you attend?
- 26 minutes ago
- 2 min read
YallWest is a Young Adult book festival at the Santa Monica High School that happens every year. It's focussed on celebrating and uplifting young adult authors from every background while encouraging and helping high schoolers, and people of all ages, to read more books. The festival busses in over 1,000 teenagers into the festival providing everything they need for the day. It's truly a wonderful organization that deserves all the praise.
So, should you attend? YES!
There are well over 50 authors that attend each year and have signings and giveaways throughout the day. Many publishers attend the event, including: Simon Teen, Epic Reads, Penguin Teen, Source Books, Underlined, and more. During the day these publishers have events going on like scavenger hunts, panels, crafts, and of course... LOTS of giveaways. What are they giving away? Advance Reader Copies of upcoming titles.
This year, three of my most anticipated reads were given out this year, including:
Tempest by Victoria Aveyard
Blightfall by Brandon Sanderson & Janci Patterson
Mortal Things by Marie Lu
I was very fortunate to receive all 3 of these at the festival. How? I waited in lines. Lots of lines. Haha. Except for Tempest... Epic Reads only had 10 copies and they did a scavenger hunt for them. They hid 10 pirate flags around the festival and if you found one you got an arc!
In addition to giveaways, there are a lot of phenomenal panels and a LOT of signings. Some of the signings will have arcs for the first (x) amount of people in line. That's how I got Mortal Things by Marie Lu! The first 25 people at both of her 2 signings (1 signing on Friday & 1 on Friday) got one.
Another thing to note is Fierce Friday. Fierce Friday, sponsored by Fierce Reads, is a prelude to the festival on Saturday and is mainly for signings. There are usually around a dozen authors signing during the 2 hour event hosted at the Santa Monica Library. At times, arcs are also given out at Fierce Friday. This year, if you purchased a book you got to choose one of three titles. In addition, if you went to the signing for Marie Lu, Melissa De La Cruz, or Aiden Thomas, you received an arc!
How to you plan for this event & When is it?
It's always at the end of April, sometimes the first Saturday of May. It's always 1-2 weeks after the LA Times Festival of Books.
To plan? I make spreadsheets & a full schedule (most the time). Looking at author's & publisher's social media, you can keep up to date with the event and new information that drops - sometimes during the day. Also, attending Fierce Friday is a good way to get the newspaper ahead of time that has most of the information for everything. That way you can review it Friday night to plan more for Saturday.
Another way? Follow me on Social Media (@Joshuas_Space) and I will help you plan it out & make sure your aware of all the giveaways / signing / and information you'll need to know for YallWest!
YallWest is one of my favorite book festivals and I attend every year and cannot wait for next year's festival.
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