Last weekend I went to the best book festival! It was the first Montreal YA festival, and it was amazing!
First, there were three sessions of panels. The first one I went to was called “New On The Scene” and featured the authors Nic Stone, Gloria Chao, S.M. Beiko, and J.F. Dubeau. This was a great panel for aspiring authors, because they talked about their journey to being published.
The next panel I went to was called “Far Off Places, Daring Sword Fights, Magic Spells… A Prince in Disguise!” and featured the authors Danielle Paige, Sarah Mlynowski, S.M. Beiko, and Karl Kerschl. I went to this panel because I want to write a fantasy novel after I finish my current book. These authors gave great advice, and I’ve been working on my fantasy idea since then.
The last panel I went to was “Uncharted Territory” with the authors Sarah Mlynowski, Brendan Kiely, Adi Alsaid, and Chantel Guertin. This one was interesting, because most of the authors had been on the same road trips that their characters went on in their books.
Now came the best part: the book signing! Since it was such a small festival, I was able to have some chats with authors that I wouldn’t normally be able to speak with at a large event. I spoke with Gloria Chao, who wrote the amazing book American Panda. It was so great to meet her because we’ve chatted online. I also spoke to Brendan Kiely, who has written multiple books including Tradition, which I reviewed on a blog tour. Some other great authors I spoke to are Sarah Mlynowski, E.K. Johnston, Danielle Paige, and Nic Stone.
This was a great festival! I hope they do it again next year! I’ll definitely be there.
Also a special thank you to my dad, for going with me and taking most of the photos in this post! He used his amazing photography skills to get some great shots of the festival! You can check out his website, Pics by Rob.
Tomorrow I’m going to BookCon!! It’s my first time going, so I’m super excited!
Did you go to Montreal YA Fest? Are you going to BookCon? What is your favourite book festival?
Jill's Book Blog 
Hi Jill, I was at the MTL YA Fest to. From the sounds of it, it does sound like they will be doing this again. Fingers crossed. I have never done book con but have done book expo 4 times already. I have to say its nice if they YA Fest continues here because we don’t have a lot of book festivals here. I agree with all the time we had to chat with the authors and there was no rush at all. Hope your having fun at Book Con.
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Thanks! Yes, MTL YA Fest was so good! It was great that I was able to really spend time with the authors and chat with them, whereas it’s so crazy at BookCon that you can’t have that special interaction.
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Hi Jill, do you mind if I post the picture of the fantasy panel? I was the moderator and would love to share this. I’m happy to attribute the photo to your dad.
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