Listening to Your Characters, Shaved Heads, and Hamster Divination: the 2014 Boston Teen Author Festival

The raffle table, filled with bookish goodness.

The raffle table, filled with bookish goodness.

Saturday was the Boston Teen Author Festival and it was a huge success! I’m so glad I got to be part of this event. The BTAF staff did such a wonderful job bringing everything together, running thoughtful and fun panels, and sharing enthusiasm about YA. Also major thanks to the Cambridge Public Library staff and the team from Porter Square Books for their hard work at the event and bringing books to so many readers. A few highlights from the day:

  • Getting to hear my fellow authors’ most useless talents, including reciting all the states in alphabetical order, making some seriously weird faces, and telling the future via hamsters.
  • Hearing about how MT Anderson worked in the image of a shaved male head into his novel at the last minute.
  • Learning about how authors use their current concerns about technology and the future to create chilling and emotionally grounded sci-fi worlds.
  • Being on a panel with amazing authors Francisco X. Stork, Emily Franklin, Stewart Lewis,  Huntley Fitzpatrick, and Erin Dionne.
  • Talking with aforementioned amazing authors about how essential it is to create a complete web of relationships for your main character, not just romantic ones.
  • Emily Franklin saying that she knows she’s really getting into a story when she starts telling people, “So it turns out…” Love that phrase for the moment of discovery!
  • Signing books for awesome readers (seriously never gets old).
  • My mom befriending half the authors and attendees.
  • A mug full of chocolate minis from the BTAF staff, aka everything I love in one place.
  • Getting to see and talk to so many wonderful teen readers. You guys warm my heart!
Buttons and mugs, my favorite forms of swag.

Buttons and mugs, my favorite forms of swag.

Thank you again to everyone who made this event possible, and to everyone who came out and spent the day with us at the Cambridge Public Library.

Is it time for the 2015 Boston Teen Author Festival yet?

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