With everything going on in the world, I have been having a lot of time to sit and think. I have been thinking about others, thinking about myself, and thinking about the world. This year would have been my third YALLWEST, which has quickly become one of the highlights that I look forward to each summer. I get to spend a whole day celebrating books, what could be better?
The past two years have been wonderful. In 2018 I spent only a few hours at the end of the day, getting a feel for the event and enjoying some it the perks. In 2019 I came with a plan, and nothing went to plan, yet it was one of the best days of the year.
2020 was going to be the year I finally knew how to do it. I was going to wear sunscreen, I was going to bring lunch and water, I was going to plan which panels I wanted to go to ahead of time. I was ready. Unfortunately, 2020 has hit a pretty big speed bump with this coronavirus, and YALLWEST looked pretty different. You can check out both my 2019 wrap up as well! My 2020 wrap up is somewhere on my Instagram if you want to scroll that far.
I know YALLWEST was almost 6 months ago or something like that, but I still wanted to recap my experience as I did last year. I am also so thankful for publishers, who are doing a lot to help their authors and readers during this time.
This year, YALLWEST was split into two days of panels and like the nerd I am, I attended each and every one. The full schedule can be found here, but I am just going to highlight my favorite ones from each day.
Saturday, May 2020
Modern Magic Worldbuilding
This panel included authors like Melissa Albert and Adalyn Grace, and it was all about authors who create wonderful beautiful worlds in their books.
As an aspiring author, it is one of my favorite things to listen to authors talk about how they created their world and where they find inspiration. Not only does it help me in a logistical sense, but it is also just super cool. Writers literally create entirely new universes and write it down on pieces of paper. THAT IS SO COOL
P.M. Keynote with Brandon Sanderson
In all honesty, I have never actually read anything from Brandon Sanderson, but I thought his coversation was really interesting and useful as a writer. He talked a lot about the process and what he has experienced helping young writers.
This panel was just super informative and also he had a big bird with him the entire time and it was both wonderful and distracting at the same time.
Sunday, May 2020
Suckage is a Part of Writing
I think this was one of my favorite panels of the entire festival. I have spent a lot of time looking at my writing and comparing it to the writing of incredible authors and it is… unhealthy. So, it was wonderful to here published authors talk about how difficult the drafting process can be.
My drafts are… bad. So hearing these authors, like Amie Kaufman and Janella Angelestalk about there process and feelings about writing was so inspiring. This was the panel that made me want to get up and write!
Worldbuilding Beyond Wikipedia
This was another panel that was just useful. It was full of authors like Bethany C. Morrow and Marie Lu. They talked about research and developing an understanding for the place and time period you are writing about.
I have never written outside of my own knowledge, and I would love to. That is one of my goal projects is to go outside my comfort zone.
Overall
I was so inspired after this festival. it is so wonderful to listen to 2 full days of people talking about books, one of the coolest pieces of portable magic in this crazy world.
I also added a ton of books to my TBR. Listening to passionate people talk about their passion projects is so joyful, I probably added 20 books to my Goodreads TBR during these 2 days. And that TBR already has 400 books in it, I do not need to add any more.
Here are some of those books!
If you were anywhere near book twitter during this time, you might have seen that a white author was selected as a host of a diverse experience panel, with Angie Thomas, Jennifer De Leon, Natasha Diaz, George M. Johnson, and Bill Konigsberg. Of course, this did not go well, and a lot of inappropriate and racist things were said. I felt so bad that I didn’t get to here these authors speak, so I was thrilled that YALLWEST gave them a new panel with a new amazing host, Nic Stone. It was wonderful to here these voices and I am so excited to finally get my hands on their books, most of which are already out!
Also bonus, most of these panels held giveaways and I actually won one! I won an ARC of Broken Wish by Julie C. Dao. I am so thrilled to be reading this, it comes out officially on October 6! Stay tuned for my review, hopefully in the coming week!
Did you here that YALLFEST is doing something similar in November?!?! And it is dedicated to writing so I am so there. I am crossing my fingers that I can get the time off so that I can enjoy and learn from the authors! More info on that can be found on their social media!
Did you attend any of these panels? I would love to know your thoughts. Leave them down in the comments below!
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