NYA Lit Fest 2019 – Event Recap

Almost two weeks ago I attended the Northern YA Literary Festival in Preston! It was a full day event packed with books, authors and friends. I had such a wonderful time at the event last year so as soon as the date was announced for 2019 I was signed up to attend! I had even more fun this year than I did last year! Here is my event recap for the NYA Lit Fest 2019!I went to this event having not planned too much about what I wanted to do throughout the day. I knew I wanted to go to panels and signings but I also wanted to spend time browsing the stalls and being with friends.

At the start of the day I attended the YA Thriller panel with M.A Bennett and Will Hill. This was an exciting panel as it was introduced by my wonderful friends Sarah and Sophie at The Little Contemporary Corner. It was lovely to watch my best friends introduce a panel! I love thriller books so this panel was a lot of fun to listen to!

Next up was the Feminist Fantasy panel. This panel was chaired by Melinda Salisbury and had the wonderful Samantha Shannon, Laure Eve and Rose Edwards answering questions. I didn’t get the chance to listen to all of this panel as I got carried away talking to book friends (not a bad thing to get carried away doing!). The parts of this panel that I caught and listen to were excellent and it made me feel empowered!

The next panel of the day was the Inclusiveness in YA panel, which I was the most excited about for a few reasons. Some of my favourite authors were on this panel, Mel Darbon, Non Pratt, Bali Rai and A.J Hartley, so I was excited to hear them speak. The other reason I was excited for this panel was that I was introducing it! I introduced this panel with the lovely JennieLY! I had so much fun introducing this panel and I am so grateful I got this amazing opportunity! Me and my friends then sat through the entire panel which was excellent.

The last panel that we all attended was the Mental Health panel. This panel had Lisa Williamson, Alice Broadway, Sara Barnard, Akemi Dawn-Bowman and Alexandra Sheppard on it. It was packed full of excellent advise from everyone on the panel about self care and many other things. All the panels throughout the day were excellent and I loved listening to all the authors speak! Panels are certainly one of my favourite things to attend at any book events!

The other thing I spent a lot of time doing throughout the day was staying in signing queues! I was proud of how much I limited myself with the books I would be taking to get signed. I got books signed by Sara Barnard, Akemi Dawn-Bowman, Will Hill, Non Pratt, Laura Steven and Mel Darbon! I loved speaking to all the authors. It is so much fun to meet new authors and to catch up with authors you have met before. A highlight for me was when I was meeting Non Pratt and she scowled at me and said “I know you!”. This was both hilarious and lovely as we spoke about the last time we met!

I went to this event with the intention to not spend any money at all. I didn’t stick to this but only spent £7! I only bought one book at the event, which I will include in my book haul at the end of the month! I also picked up a couple of ARCs from the publisher stalls around the event, I will be including these in my monthly haul too!

Another thing I love about this event are the little independent bookish craft stalls. I didn’t buy anything from these stalls this year but I took note of the shops so I could buy things online in the future!

It was wonderful to spend a full day surrounded by bookish friends and authors. I had such a lovely time! I cannot wait to attend this event again next year and it has upped my excitement for YALC!

Thank you so much to everyone that made NYA Lit Fest possible and a huge thanks to Hazel who is the mastermind behind it all! Having seen all the hard work that goes into making this event as wonderful and organised as it was, I feel so lucky to attend!

Bring on NYA next year! Did you attend NYA? What did you think? Let me know in the comments below!