On Saturday, Nov. 12, students from Winthrop University drove down to Upper King Street, Charleston, to attend YALLFest, a festival that celebrates Young Adult and Middle-Grade books.
Despite the specific target ages being teenagers and young adults, the attendees consisted of assortments of ages, identities and races.
The point of the annual event is to bring people together to share their love of reading. Attendees from all over the country discussed their love of books, what initially got them into reading with each other and the authors that inspired them.
Some came with a feeling of nostalgia for their youth, some came to learn tips on writing and others came just to meet their favorite authors.
A variety of authors came for book signings and to attend panels. New authors also went in the hopes of spreading the word about their books, offering pamphlets and bookmarks with information regarding their stories.
Some authors included the keynote speaker Cassandra Clare, author of the popular series “Shadowhunters Chronicles”, Jennifer Lynn Barnes, author of several novels but most successfully “The Inheritance Games”, Sara Shepard, author of “Pretty Little Liars”, Angie Thomas, author of “The Hate You Give”, Soman Chainani, the author of “The School For Good and Evil series” and various others.
Several of these authors served on panels where they answered curated questions about their books as well as questions from the audience.
Some of the panels included “The Future of Comics: From Manga To Marvel & Webtoons to Indie GNS,” “Beyond Bridgerton: The Cool Kids of Historical Fantasy” and “Debuts: How To Navigate Your First Book?”
All of the panels had the goal of giving the audience a sample of what is next from both the authors and the future of YA books including the discussion of feminism, race and acceptance and teaching that to future readers.
These are characteristics that many YA books incorporate by taking what is happening in the real world and addressing them as issues within worlds within books. These could either be in fantasy or realistic fiction.
An example of this would be Chloe Gong’s “These Violent Delights”, a 1920’s retelling of “Romeo & Juliet” that alludes to the imperialism of Shanghai through historical fantasy.
The Blue Bicycle Books store is the primary sponsor for YALLFest and has done so since the first year of YALLFest back in 2011.
A similar event is YALLWest, the younger sibling event of YALLFest that takes place in the springtime in Santa Monica, California. Both events are admission free and celebrate the love of books countrywide.
The group from Winthrop attending YALLFest was the Winthrop Literary Society which consisted of seven members attending. The group traveled down to Charleston to visit on the day of the two events. YALLFest is an event that the group has been looking forward to for months and is the second year of Winthrop’s attendance. The group attending considers the trip to the festival as a bonding experience for the club and hopes to return next year. Even a Winthrop professor, Amanda Covington, went to the event, separately from the Literary Club.
The Winthrop Literary Society is an interest club that encourages the appreciation of reading and the heightening of literary interests of the Winthrop community.
Any and all are welcome to attend the club, and those interested in the Winthrop Literary Society are encouraged to come to meetings at Bancroft 264 on Tuesdays during common time.
