Arcadia England

Last Saturday Natalie Crown, our Student Services Coordinator, went along to YALC at Earls Court. The event was a great celebration of books and readers, and Natalie has written up an account of her day below.

This weekend saw the first EVER UK Young Adult Literature Convention take place at London Film and Comic Con. The event was curated by Children’s Laureate Malorie Blackman and it was a massive hit. As a writer and reader of YA it was heart-warming to see so many passionate people in attendance!

I went to the event with my brother and, to be honest, we had no idea what to expect. We had early bird tickets and got there by about 9.30. There was a terrifyingly long queue when we turned up, and we walked past it with the blind belief that our early bird tickets meant we did NOT have to stand there. Luckily, we were correct. We queued for about 45 minutes (which was barely anything compared to some) in a very orderly winding circle (so stereotypically British) and then we were inside.

I was overwhelmed. My main interest was in YALC but I loved pretty much everything on display at Comic Con. We browsed the stalls, I spent way too much money, and after the first hour I was already starting to feel exhausted. There were SO many people, and it was so difficult to move around! It was just incredibly draining, mentally and physically, but in the best kind of way.

When I finally found the YALC section, I proceeded to grab a ton of free swag and spent too much money on books, of course.

I did NOT make the most of the event, because I was not entirely prepared. I think that in future I would skip the Comic Con stuff and focus entirely on YALC. I made the mistake of switching buildings to the gaming zone before Malorie Blackman’s signing. By the time I got back through the press of people, my knees were aching and the queue was miles long. I ended up getting exactly ZERO books signed, which was a shame as there were so many great writers in attendance.

I did go along to two of the panels though, and it was really great hearing from the authors! I went to the dystopia panel mainly for Malorie Blackman (she is literally the coolest) and Patrick Ness (he is literally the second coolest after Malorie). I’m not actually crazy about dystopia for the most part, but it was really great to hear them (and Sarah Crossan)talk about why they think dystopia is so popular. I loved that they all seemed to agree that it is better to write a story BEFORE you pick a genre, because so many novels cross genres and shouldn’t be stuck in one box. My lack of love for the genre also just goes to show how worthwhile it was to see and listen to everything. I really enjoyed it.

The second panel I saw was the fantasy panel, the one I was determined to get too! In a way this one was a little bit disappointing as I didn’t really think the questions were very focused on fantasy. The answers were great but they seemed to be more generic YA questions. That said, I wasn’t familiar with ANY of these authors before the panel, and I’m suddenly dying to read something by each of them (Ruth Warburton, Amy Mcculloch, Frances Hardinge and Jonathan Stroud). I really loved what they had to say about their YA audience. They all agreed that they don’t think about writing for a younger audience, they just write stories. They write for everyone! Similar to how the dystopia panel suggested books shouldn’t be holed into one genre, this panel suggested the same for age groups.

Overall, YALC was exhausting but it was exciting too. My advice would be to plan in advance, to try not to do too much, take lots of water and to wear comfortable shoes. It was just a brilliant event, and when people try to tell me that young people don’t want to read I’m just gonna laugh and point at them. More than that, when people call YA 'teen lit' I shall roll my eyes. The YALC was an incredible mix of age, gender and race. YA books have something for everyone.

We know some of our students went along and we would love to hear their accounts of the day/days they attended. What were your thoughts? Were you more interested in the main bulk of Comic Con instead? Let us know.

For any prospective students, while this event has not been confirmed for next year I feel hugely confident that YALC will return to us. So, you might just get to come along next time!

Oh, and in amongst all of the wonderful costumes - there was this guy!