At Home YALC 2021

Last weekend was YALC! For those not in the know, that’s the Young Adult Literature Convention in the UK. It’s held every year at the end of July/beginning of August, and it’s usually held in London. But with Covid, it’s been held online for the last two years. Meaning that I’ve finally been able to participate.

I thought I’d do a little round-up about what I did and enjoyed. I know some of the giveaways are still going for a little longer, and the panels are all available to watch on YALC’s Youtube. So if you see anything you’re interested in, it might not hurt to check them out.

I’ll be honest, I mostly stalked the tag for giveaways. We all love free books, and since I can’t buy any or request any ARCs at the moment, the giveaways were a sneaky way of trying to get new books. My excuse was that I probably won’t win most of them, if even any. Last year I won two books. This year I also won two but it was from a single giveaway. I do wish I’d gotten some ARCs but that’s just how it goes.

There were quite a few panels. I’ve watched the Exploring Magical Worlds panel, which had Garth Nix, Darren Shan, C.L Clark and Hafsah Faizal. All authors that I’ve read and enjoyed. I’ve not picked up Darren’s fantasy series he’s self-publishing yet, but I did grab the first book on Kindle after watching the panel. They all had some interesting thoughts and ways of doing things. I also watched some of the author workshops, as I’m trying to get back into writing!

There was another fantasy panel, but since Cassandra Clare was on the panel I decided not to watch it. I’m not exactly a fan, but that’s one out there for fantasy lovers and writers for sure!

There have also been some book previews and novel readings. It’s been fun to find out about some books that I hadn’t heard of before. I’ve added a few new books to my TBR, which is probably not ideal, but I’m excited!

It’s been so much fun being able to participate. Even if I couldn’t properly join in on Friday as I was working, it’s still so lovely that I actually stood a chance at getting books. With the timing of the con, I’ve not really had the opportunity to go before. I don’t know when or if I ever will be able to. So I’ll be a little sad when it’s in person again.

It’s so fun to see so much of the UK book community, so excited and together over this one event. And I hope maybe when the event is in person, there will still be some online stuff going on.