A couple weekends ago I attended the Teen Book Festival in Rochester. Brynn and I decided to meet up at the fest and then stay overnight in Rochester so we could catch up and celebrate her birthday. Within the first 30 minutes of the festival we spotted our mutual friend-from-college Lisa and kidnapped her for a trip to the coffee shop. Neither of us knew that Lisa was going to be there and neither of us had seen her in years. Look how happy we were:
The festival is held at Nazareth College and holy smokes is that campus beautiful. It’s technically in Pittsford, New York and is very close to the Erie Canal. Just gorgeous.
Anyway, the festival was amazing. The entire event was teen-focused which meant that the teens in the room had first dibs on the seats, the questions, and everything else. There were 25 young adult (YA) authors present and they each presented three times during the four workshop slots. We were able to see presentations by Holly Black, Laurie Halse Anderson, Alyson Noel, and Matt de la Pena. Their “presentations” ranged from speeches to powerpoints to an hour of interactive Q&As. Holly Black and Matt de la Pena were super interactive, and my favorites of the day (Matt = hilarious). Laurie Halse Anderson gave a tried-and-true presentation using Powerpoint and was entertaining. Alyson Noel got stuck in the chapel and while it looked cool, her speech from the pulpit sounded, well, speechy. Whereas the other authors we saw were in small, intimate spaces, she was up high and far removed. Too bad for her, I was looking forward to hearing her talk.
All in all, the day was great. I loved spending it with Lisa and Brynn too. Lisa is just finishing up her MLS and Brynn, as I’ve written before, is a librarian in the Adirondacks. We talked over lunch about how funny it was we all ended up in the same field and really, it’s not surprising. We were all English majors with Women’s Studies minors in college, writers, feminists–there’s something about this field and this job that has attracted us all. I couldn’t be happier to know that I’m embarking on a professional path with them.
After the festival, Lisa had to hit the road and Brynn and I went on a walk along the canal in Pittsford. Photos from the walk are below.
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courtney - So jealous! The TBF was filling up my Twitter Feed at the time and I was like asldfkjslkdfjdsaklfadkjd jealous.
Lovely lovely photos.
whitney - Thanks, C. I hope some day I can see you at the TBF and we can wear matching pink housecoats.