YA Fandom Frenzy (post event wrap-up)

September 30, 2013 Uncategorized 0

Yesterday I attended the first ever YA Fandom Frenzy hosted by Anderson’s Bookshop!

I’ve gone to their YA lit conference for teachers and librarians before so I was excited to see what the Fandom Frenzy would be like. I certainly wasn’t disappointed. Just look at the list of authors:

Stephen Chbosky, T. M. Goeglein, Alex London, Christa Desir, Andrew Smith, Sonya Sones, Brittany Geragotelis, Shannon Messenger, Terra McVoy, Nancy Ohlin, Michael Grant, Myra McEntire, Kat Falls, Elizabeth Eulberg, Regina Sirois, Antony John, James Swanson, Cristin Terrill, David Lubar, Trish Cook, Demitria Lunetta, Joelle Charbonneau, Bennett Madison, Gayle Forman, D.J. MacHale & Beth Revis

Awesome authors being awesome!

How could the day not be great? Here’s a brief run down with photos:

The day started off with a bang! Attendees were given an Anderson’s bag with a couple ARCs in it, as well as candy and swag. I gave one book to the teen who was at my table but kept this one for myself:

Do you think they tried to make the book and bag match? 🙂


After a brief overview of the day and author introductions we went right into speed dating. There were 26 authors at the event so we got to spend 2 minutes with each one. It went so quickly!!!

Ready for speed dating to begin!

After speed dating we went into a lightning round of questions. There was a moderator who asked fun and quirky questions and each author had to say the first thing that came to mind. This was my favorite part. It was no holds barred! I mean, when asked to show us their best YA cover pose Beth Revis totally grabbed Myra McEntire and smooched her. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, Alex London took his shirt off. Yeah. That all happened. 

Answering lightning round questions
This was followed by lunch and a chance to shop the bookstore Anderson’s had set up there. Even though I had spent over my limit the day before I had to go back and but more books because the authors were so much fun! I just needed their books! After lunch we had “Story on the fly” where the authors were given a story prompt chosen at random from a book. It started at one end of the line and each person had to add a sentence or two to the story. These ended up pretty crazy!

Becky Anderson giving D.J. MacHale the story prompt.
After the story time we moved to the final “event” and my other favorite… YA Frenzy Quiz Bowl. We were assigned tables with two authors at each. There were a few different rounds of book/YA related activities that each table completed. Scores were tallied and the winners got a small prize. The activities were things like seeing a still shot and having to identify the book and author the movie was based on or seeing a photo and identifying the author. It was really fun but there were some really tough ones! Our table didn’t win but we were still awesome. That pretty much wrapped things up. There was a candy bar and book signing at the end. 
Hello, deliciousness!
Overall, this was such a fun event. It was really great to get to spend the day with authors and book lovers. I mean, how often do you get to sit and eat lunch with Myra McEntire and Gayle Forman?!? Or have Stephen Chbosky buy you a copy of his book after you tell him you’re buying it to give to one of your students? Man, I love authors. If you live anywhere near Anderson’s Bookshop I would highly suggest having this event on your radar for next year! It’s only going to get better.

Sad you couldn’t go? Well! I have put together a prize pack to help ease the pain 🙂 It includes a totally cool I read YA tote with some swag from the event as well as a couple books! I forgot to bring my copies of Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie by David Lubar and The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky so I bought new ones. I’m giving away the unsigned ones as well as a signed copy of Miss Fortune Cookie by Laura Bjorkman (she wasn’t there but I won this!) There is also a signed Infinityglass poster, a signed bookplate from Beth Revis, a totally cool poster with the new Harry Potter artwork by Kazu Kibuishi and more! 


To enter simply leave a comment telling me what author you would love to meet at a YA lit event. US only. Must be 13 or older to win 🙂 Ends October 18th. 

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