#YATakeover...starting tonight!

Anyone with an interest in Young Adult fiction, there is a treat in store for you today and tomorrow -  and all you need to take part is an internet connection.
#YATakeover is a book festival celebrating YA, held entirely on Twitter.

Organised by five brilliant bloggers -  take a bow, Chris, Georgina, Sarah, Laura and Megan - it involves authors, librarians, booksellers, journalists, readers and bloggers, with an international line up and an ambitious programme of events.

Today's first panel kicks off at 7pm, with a chat about the best YA reads of 2015 (a fiver to anyone who gives my book a namecheck).

Thereafter there's a non-stop flow of talks and debates including Art in YA, YA Prizes,  Libraries in the Digital Age and Suicide and Depression in YA. Tomorrow's programme includes every YA genre going, plus all kinds of crossovers and mash-ups. The whole thing promises to be a fabulous showcase for the breadth and depth of YA fiction today.

I'm lucky enough to have been invited to be on a panel about love in YA, alongside Cat Clarke, CJ Skuse and Laura Jarrett,. Between us there is NOTHING we don't know about love. So polish your questions, and look for us on Twitter tomorrow from 2.10pm until 2.55pm .

 Other authors taking part include Frances Hardinge, who this week won the children's category of the Costa Book Awards, Eve Ainsworth, Liz Kessler, Lisa Williamson, Taran Matheru, Alice Oseman, Abbie Rushton, MG Harris, Holly Smale, Sarah Mussi, Becky Albertalli, Non Pratt, Sally Green, Jennifer Niven, Louise O'Neill, Marcus Sedgwick and  Lauren Kate. The full line up is here.

Alexia Casale, YAShot organiser

#YATakeover is yet another example of the YA community taking the intitiative in creating events, although the first online book festival I attended was organised right here on ABBA.

 Last year we saw well-attended gatherings at Waterstones in Birmingham and Nottingham for the #UKYAExtravaganza, and a #UKMGExtravaganza as well. Authors Emma Pass and Kerry Drewery were the masterminds who made that happen. And another author, Alexia Casale worked with librarians in Hillingdon to make #YAShot happen, a crazy, busy, bustling day of bookish events and much socialising in October.

Authors line up at the Nottingham UKYAX

Before that was YALC fringe party in July 2015 and 2014, an author-led initiative to include more writers in the excitement that is YALC, and raise money for charity as well. There was a fringe party last year as well, and it would be great to grow the fringe events and perhaps have them recognised by the organisers of YALC, in the spirit of inclusion and fun.
But today and tomorrow, the place to be is Twitter. The hashtag is #YATakeover, and the whole of Twitter is welcome! 

Book bloggers at the YALC Fringe party 2014.