LA Times Festival of Books 2010

This past weekend I had a chance to attend the LA Times Festival of Books. It is housed it each year at UCLA. There are hundreds of book and writing related vendors, author signings, stages with book events, and author panels. Here are some pictures of the events that I attended.


This was the first year that there was a YA Stage. The colors were cool!


With a line-up like this, I didn't feel like I needed to leave the area.


First up on stage was WriteGirl, a teen mentoring program. I have had the wonderful opportunity to volunteer with this amazing organization this past year. Our girls had a chance to read some of their writing. Though there isn't a picture, I was asked to read a piece from our anthology. Afterwards, I realized I was on the same stage as some big name authors.


On Saturday, I met up with Kami Garcia and Margie Stohl, authors of Beautiful Creatures and blogger Khyrinthia and her mom. Khy was off with CGYvette when this picture was taken. I also met Allen Zadoff who signed my copy of Food, Girls, And Other Things I Can't Have. And I got to hang with Tenner, Kiersten White and her friend Chelsea. A shout out to Chelsea for having sunscreen. I would have been burnt to a crisp without it.


On Day Two of the Festival, I arrived early to wait in line with a bunch of Nerd Fighters. We were all waiting to see the rock stars of YA Literature,John Green and David Levithan. If you get an opportunity to see John and David - GO!


On Sunday, the YA Stage had another wonderful line-up.


If you haven't experienced a LAYApalooza, it is a fantastic experience. I was first introduced to this game show extravaganza last June. On Sunday, nearly a dozen YA authors answered book trivia questions. The prizes - copies of signed books by the authors at the Festival. I won a signed copy of Carolyn Cognan's The Lost Children.


I wrapped up the weekend with a YA panel with Sonya Sones, Gayle Forman, Cynthia Kadohata, and Jandy Nelson.

It would be an understatement to say I had fun last weekend. I was definitely in book geek heaven.

Would love to hear about the experiences that others had at the festival. If you were there, what did you do?

-Aly