Colorado Teen Lit Conference 2014!!

NOTE: I switch tenses when I'm tired. 

If there's ever a good reason to get up at 6 in the morning, the Colorado Teen Lit Conference is one of the best. 

I walk in at 8 in the morning. Even though I've been here before, I still manage to get a bit lost.

Luckily, there are little pink feet taped around the floor so I was able to find registration.

follow the pink-taped-foot road

I go outside the main hall and see Maggie, one of the heads of the CTLC who helped me do a lot of awesome stuff last year. Since I had such a great time last year, I was very excited.

Look how excited

As you know from last year (and if you don't, check out this blog post,) I was a kinda-participant of last's years podcast interviews through the Denver Public Library with the authors last year, Lauren Oliver and Jay Asher. I also got to be on the Teen Connections Panel and ask those two lovely authors questions in front of a crowd. 

Since you can't be on the panel twice, I knew I wasn't doing that this year. 

OR SO I THOUGHT.

But then Maggie offered me to sit in on the interviews with A.S. King and David Levithan.

Of course I said HELL YEAH.

So after checking in (my name not being spelled "Owen" made my day much more awesome,) I meet Amy, a Denver Public Library librarian in charge of the podcast. I find out I need to be there for the interviews between 10-12, which means I miss the first two sessions out of three but SINCE I GET TO MEET DAVID LEVITHAN AND A.S. KING I THINK I'M OKAY. Plus, if the contest winners who actually get to interview say it's alright, I get to ask them a question.

I find my friend Jake and his friends from the Boulder Public Library Teen Advisory Board.

Jake is awesome

 I also meet both Will Graysons.

Played by Sami

I also get to talk to some of the librarians from my school and some teens from Monarch who are totally rad.

Ignore the rivalry for the sake of books

And then the morning keynote speech was done by A.S. King, who had an amazing oration with lessons, symbols, metaphors, and just a great story that was inspirational and genuine and honest and I love hearing it.

When that amazing speech ended, I got to go to the room where I had the interviews with A.S. King and David Levithan. I'm going to post that whole experience through Statement, so I'll link that when it's up. For now, enjoy the selfies I took with both the authors.

Me with A.S. King

Me with David Levithan

Then we have lunch, and I eat with Jake, Sami, others from BTAB. We spend most of lunch eating food and candy and talking about sessions, book recs, tattoos, and why we can't stand classic literature (sue me.)

David Levithan, for his lunch keynote, read aloud from Boy Meets Boy and Two Boys Kissing. And it was such an awesome experience. Especially with Boy Meets Boy, which I love, it was so awesome to hear the author reading his words in a way that I had kinda always heard them along with the laughs of everyone in the crowd. Truly amazing. 

Afterwards, I make my way over to room 320 for the Local Author Panel, where I got to see a discussion five lovely authors.

Alane Ferguson: A freaking ghost hunter! That's amazing. She was vibrant and intellectual and also scanned me to make sure I wasn't haunted.

Anastasia Zhivotov: She had so much to say about life and her book seems fascinating and dark. I wish her and her self-publishing endeavors the best of luck.

Rebekah Crane: She told an awesome story where she inspired an urban criminal to get passionate about a Charles Dickens novel.

Barbara Wright: I thought her backstory for writing Crow, which is about a race riot she had never heard of and therefore wanted to write about it to correct her ignorance (paraphrased,) was intriguing and noble.

Rebecca Green Gasper: I find it very admirable to tackle dating abuse, especially when she told a story where most people didn't even know they were being abused at a conference about such a topic until she defined it.

It was fantastic, fun, dark, and interesting to sit in on, and I'm very excited for their books.

Then, the Teen Connections Panel starts.

So many hilarious things happened.

-A.S. King talked about her new book about an invisible helicopter and David Levithan "held" an invisible book.

-A.S. King's crazy roommate. 

-David Levithan saying that the worst thing about co-authoring was splitting the profit

-Swearing

-Awesome David/Amy friendship

-Lots of amazing questions *cough cough including mine*

--Mine was about how they don't really plan characters, but do characters ever manifest from people they know and have people ever called them on it? Amy (A.S. King) said her relative is completely stubborn on the fact Vera Dietz is based on her, even though it isn't. David says no one ever has said that they're a character to his face.

That was such an fantastic and amazing experience and I can't wait for next year!

Sincerely,

Owyn