In its fifth year, YallWest, the sunny festival near the beach remains the biggest YA event in SoCal featuring dozens of the best YA authors writing today.
YallWest, which began in 2015, is the sister festival to the North Carolina Festival YallFest held since 2011 in North Carolina. The southern festival was co-founded by Jonathan Sanchez, a book store owner, and authors Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl and since the beginning has gathered close to 50 top authors in Charleston. The newer West Coast version has rapidly become a major Spring event in L.A. and in 2018, 20,000 YA fans attended YallWest.
If you've not been to a book festival the event is there to connect fans to fave authors and since this is a YA festival there are lots of teens. The book sellers are there too because YA is a major segment of the publishing market and because engagement is the latest buzz strategy for online marketing. And it works. KIds get to kick the tires and hang with bookish kids just like them. On this day they are the cool kids.
Spreading out across the High School campus indoors and out are book signings, panels, special events and food vans. The publishers are mainly under tent booths set up in a row like mini book stores that only sell YA. DC and Marvel had a big presence, especially the “Storymakers: The Women of Marvel” panel (that was packed) celebrating female progress in publishing and YallWest co-founder Margaret Stohl's discussion of her new role as author of a Captain Marvel series. These are authors in mainstream pop culture with Disney as their ultimate boss, so while funny and occasionally open about publishing, the theme is empowerment and excitement about new and soon to be published books.
Top YA authors are rock stars (only funnier) and their panels were lively and smart. It's clear that the writers onstage understood that many of the fans are budding writers. At noon, the “DIY Storymakers: How to Actually Write a Comic, the DC Way,” panel provided an open forum for teen writers to share ideas or ask for for help with a story in progress. Or later in the day young authors could attend the, “If We Read To Escape Reality, Why Write About It?” a panel that basically discussed the age old debate of commerce vs. art. There were approximately 20 panels with almost a fourth of them aimed at up and coming writers including “Path to Publishing,” a candid discussion with five authors all with unique stories of how they made it as writers.
There were contests for new writers and artists and lots of chances to meet a favorite author. In a wide open plaza slightly off campus newer authors were set up to sign books, but at times there were only a few fans in line. I had a chance to speak with a few authors including first timer, Zara Lisbon author of “Fake Plastic Girl.” As it turns out Lisbon is from L.A. and her pastel noir mystery is set in Santa Monica and Venice and a few other SoCal spots including a long list of historic and contemporary eatieries and clubs. She was there with her Mom and relatively new to the book marketing scene. Like most of the new authors I spoke with at YallWest, Lisbon went out of her way to make sure there was no confusion that despite being published traditionally, she was just one of many and far from a best-selling author. Yet.
There's something heartening about kids enthralled by fiction all getting together at a book love fest IRL. That sentiment is in the style of YallWest, but I'm going back next year for another dose of enthusiasm.
Here's a link to their site: https://www.yallwest.com
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