YA Day 2020

December 22, 2019December 22, 2019 The YA Room3 Comments

YA Day is back!

We’re thrilled to announce that our third annual YA Day will be on Saturday 14 March from 10am – 4pm at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne. Presented in partnership with Writers Victoria, YA Day 2020 will feature 10 incredible #LoveOzYA authors, merch stalls, and signing opportunities.

We’ll start off the day with discussions and signings, giving you close encounters with your favourite writers. Get your book signed, get your questions answered, get to know new-to-you authors with great new books!

Then, in the afternoon, we will split into two streams.

Want to write your own YA? We’ll have two 90-minute workshops: Will Kostakis on How to Build A Story and former publisher Kate Cuthbert on How to Get Your Story Out There.

Looking to interact with other readers? We’ll have four panel discussions, featuring your favourite authors talking about topics like ‘My Favourite (Fictional) Murder’, ‘Trash or Treasure?’, and a spirited discussion about which tropes are readable – and which are not.

The Writing Stream has limited spaces, so if you are interested, we encourage you to book early.

Get your tickets here!

Keep Them in Suspense | Q&A

January 26, 2019 The YA RoomLeave a comment

It’s hard to believe YA Day is only two weeks away! We couldn’t be more excited for the epic day of #LoveOzYA goodness we have planned. With 15 Aussie authors and five panels (plus the chance to get all your books signed, and even win some prize packs), this is a day you won’t want to miss out on.

Make sure you’ve booked your tickets through the Writers Victoria website if you haven’t already!

Today we’re sharing a little Q&A with Fleur Ferris, Anna Snoekstra, and Sarah Epstein, who’ll be appearing at YA Day on the ‘Keep Them in Suspense’ panel, which is all about crime, thrillers, and what it takes to write an unputdownable novel. This is just a taste of what’s to come on Saturday 9th February!

Mini Q&A with Danielle Binks

January 19, 2019 The YA RoomLeave a comment

It’s hard to believe YA Day is just three weeks away! How exciting! We can’t wait to hear from 15 incredible Aussie authors who’ll be appearing on five epic panels. It’s a full day of bookish goodness, created in partnership with Writers Victoria! Click here to grab your tickets if you haven’t purchased them already.

Today we’re sharing a mini Q&A with literary agent, editor of Begin, End, Begin: a #LoveOzYA Anthology, and all-round amazing human being, Danielle Binks. Danielle will be appearing on the “It’s Alive!: How to Get Published” panel with Ellie Marney and Nina Kenwood on the day, and we can’t wait to hear all of them chat about their own writing and offer up tips and tricks on how to get published.

If you’re a writer and you’re looking to get published one day, this panel is sure to give you the insider knowledge you need to better equip yourself for this journey – so make sure you bring a pen and paper!

Ask an Author Anything | Q&A

January 12, 2019 The YA RoomLeave a comment

YA Day is coming up fast! We couldn’t be more excited for our #LoveOzYA-filled day, which comprises of five panels and 15 incredible authors! There’ll also be games with prizes up for grabs, and The Younger Sun will be our bookseller for the day.

In the lead up to our most anticipated event of the year, we’ll be sharing little Q&As with the attending authors to get a little sneak peek at what they might be talking about on the day. How exciting! And if you haven’t booked your ticket yet, places are going fast – reserve your spot here so you don’t miss out.

First up we have Michael Earp, Katya de Becerra, and Alison Evans from our ‘Ask an Author Anything’ panel sharing their tips and advice for all aspiring authors! Check it out!

Throwback Month

December 1, 2018 The YA RoomLeave a comment

It’s finally here! Say hello to Throwback Month – AKA the month we get to reread all our trashy faves and gush about them! It’s okay, we know you love them, even though you’re still pretending you’re over your The Fault in Our Stars phase. We’ve all been there.

Join us this month to read some of the best (and worst) YA novels published before 2013 and relive a simpler time. A time before the trashfire of a movie Allegiant came out (well, half of it, at least). A time before Instagram’s algorithm wrecked havoc on our bookstagram likes. A time where our biggest memes were Nyan Cat and Grumpy Cat. I wonder how those cats are doing.

Anyway! We hope you’ll be participating by reading some older YA novels and attempting to complete a line of the #ThrowbackBingo board! Don’t forget to check out this post to find out the rules and to hear about all the prizes up for grabs. Exciting!

Today we’ll be sharing the books we’re planning on reading this month in case you need a little bit more inspiration. But it’s pretty simple. If the book you want to read is generally counted as YA (and yes, we’re counting all the Harry Potter books as YA) and it was published before 2013, you can read it for this challenge!Read More »

Throwback Bingo Challenge

November 25, 2018 The YA Room2 Comments

It’s hard to believe that we’re almost at the end of 2018! But before we bid this year adieu, we want to celebrate surviving the last 11 months by doing a bit of fun reading with all of you. Last year, we had #LoveOzYA Month – which was heaps of fun – and so this year we wanted to do something equally exciting!

Say hello to Throwback Month! That’s right! We’re going to be rereading some of our favourite YA novels and reminiscing about what we read years ago. Remember the days of The Hunger Games and Divergent and Twilight? The days where we all fangirled over the movie release of City of Bones and cried over the ending of Allegiant? We’re going to be experiencing those feels all over again next month during Throwback Month!

Whether you read those novels as a teen or if you’ve never read them before, we hope you’ll join us for our month of fun. There’s going to be a bingo challenge, and virtual viewing parties, as well as special content! We’re super excited about Throwback Month, but today we’d like to introduce the main element of the month – the bingo challenge!

If you’ve participated in a bingo challenge before, you’ll probably know how this works. But for those of you that haven’t, please scroll down to check out the rules. There are also prizes to be won, so make sure you get involved!Read More »

Highway Bodies | COVER REVEAL

November 9, 2018November 9, 2018 The YA RoomLeave a comment

It’s finally time to reveal the stunning cover for Highway Bodies! It’s been so hard keeping how gorgeous this cover is a secret, but finally you can all feast your eyes upon it! We’re so excited to get a copy of Highway Bodies, and devour it, and then put in on our shelves along with Ida – and every other book that Alison blesses the world with!

Congrats again, Alison! We’re so happy for you and we can’t wait for Highway Bodies to be out in the world. Everyone, make sure you go ahead and preorder your copy so you can read it as soon as it’s out!

Bodies on the TV, explosions, barriers, and people fleeing. No access to social media. And a dad who’ll suddenly bite your head off – literally. These teens have to learn a new resilience…

Members of a band wield weapons instead of instruments.

A pair of siblings find there’s only so much you can joke about, when the menace is this strong.

And a couple find depth among the chaos.

Highway Bodies is a unique zombie apocalypse story featuring a range of queer and gender non-conforming teens who have lost their families and friends and can only rely upon each other.

Preorder your copy:

Allen & Unwin • Dymocks • Readings • Booktopia • Book Depository

Meet our Teen Representative: Rosie

October 21, 2018 The YA Room1 Comment

Just when you thought you’d met your new YA Room facilitators, we have another surprise for you!

Here at The YA Room, we’re passionate about bringing readers together and making a space for likeminded young people. We aim to be an accessible space for teens in particular, so we’ve decided to bring on board our very first Teen Representative!

Rosie, our Teen Rep, will be assisting The YA Room in countless different ways – from event organisation, to social media campaign strategies, to sharing her recent favourite reads with us. We’re so excited to be working with such a passionate YA aficionado, and we hope you’ll help us in welcoming her to the team.

Without further ado, here’s a little piece from Rosie!

Hello, I am Rosie, a fourteen-year-old book nerd, aspiring physicist, philosopher and novelist. When I am not found utterly engrossed in a book, you can find me watching a period drama, eating an abundant amount of chocolate or daydreaming about fantastical lands and alternate time periods.

I am so grateful to be a part of The YA Room team and am incredibly excited to be a part of the running of such a wondrous book club. Through my position at The YA Room I hope to advocate for the importance of reading amongst young people, and further the accessibility of The YA Room amongst teenager readers.

I am very passionate about young-adult literature and am so excited to be apart of a community also ardent about the genre.

Let’s get reading!

Twitter • Facebook • Instagram • YouTube • Eventbrite

Welcome to the New Era

October 14, 2018October 14, 2018 The YA RoomLeave a comment

It’s the start of a new chapter at The YA Room, and we can’t wait to go on this journey with you. Get ready for even cooler events, more content, and some new friends. We hope you love what we have in store for you!

And with this new era, we’ve decided to expand our YA family! Get to know our two new co-hosts below, and come along to our upcoming Book Meets and events to meet them in person! We’re so excited for you to meet our new friends.

Australian Reading Hour

September 17, 2018 The YA Room1 Comment

This Thursday, we’re celebrating the Australian Reading Hour by hosting a night of #LoveOzYA celebrations with three incredible authors: Melissa Keil, Steph Bowe, and Sarah Epstein!

There’ll be a panel discussion, a book swap, and silent reading. And, as all great reading sessions involve, there’ll also be tea and chocolate! We’re so excited to have these three #LoveOzYA sensations in our presence for a fun night of bookish chatter and reading.

Grab your ticket here!

http://www.thegradlab.com.au

Other awesome things are happening…

Book Swap

There’ll also be a book swap / donation drive happening on the night! Bring along any read or unread books to trade for a new one for a small donation you see fit. All funds raised will be donated to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation, and all leftover books will be donated to be sent across Australia. So please bring as many children and YA books as you can spare, as well as some cash if you’d like to take home a novel!Read More »