Texas Teen Book Fest 2016

At the beginning of the month I attended the Texas Teen Book Festival, which is an annual event that usually has around 25 authors participating in panels and signings. This was my 3rd consecutive time attending this event, but I remember going to the very first TTBF in 2009. This year I had so many authors that I wanted to meet and get my books signed. I unfortunately didn't get to meet two of the authors I was looking forward to seeing because I had to leave the fest early to go to work, but overall I did get a lot of books signed.

I ended up bringing about 15 books to the festival and I bought five books while I was there. Above is all the books I got signed (plus the second and third book in the Daughter of Smoke and Bones Trilogy). Here are some of the highlights of meeting some authors:

• David Arnold drew a bus in my copy of Mosquitoland! 
• Mary E. Pearson and I talked a little bit about how much I love her The Remnant Chronicles series and how I had previously met her last year. 
• I wore my Marauders shirt from The Colorful Geek and Sabaa Tahir and I bonded because she owns the shirt as well. 
• I was really looking forward to meet Shaun David Hutchinson and I told him that his book We Are the Ants is one of my all time favorite books, and he shared with me some details about his upcoming publications. 
• I also met Laini Taylor and Book People had signed copies of Strange the Dreamer available for sale and I can't wait until March to get my copy. Since Strange the Dreamer's release date got pushed back, Taylor was handing out samplers of the first 100 pages of the book. 

I unfortunately wasn't able to meet Leigh Bardugo or Morgan Rhodes because I had to leave early and go to work. I luckily already have a signed book by both authors and I was able to get within close proximity to both of them, but I really hope that both authors will come back to the central Texas area soon. Leigh Bardugo was definitely the most popular author at the event and even though I didn't get to meet her, I was in awe when I saw that she stayed for hours making sure everyone got their books signed. And someone had an extra copy of the cards that Bardugo was handing out during her signing and they kindly gave me their Inej card!

There were also various booths set up during the festival for various publishing companies and other book related merchandise. One of them was OwlCrate, a monthly YA book subscription box, and at there booth I got a lot of fun trinkets. I also finally subscribed to OwlCrate after lusting over their Instagram account and watching various unboxing videos, so I'll be sharing photos of my first box soon.

So that was my experience at the 2016 TTBF, it has been really cool to see how big the festival has gotten over the years and how big the YA community in Austin has grown. - Jessica