#btafive

That’s me!! Was super excited to be there. Look at all that excitement on my face.

The first panel that I attended was the Speculative Fiction Reflecting our World with Malinda Lo, Victoria Schwab, and Michael Buckley. 

It was pretty interesting, Michael was really funny and did a fantastic Bill Clinton impersonation (it’s a whole story you gotta ask for me to tell). Victoria Schwab said that she started writing odd worlds because she thought our world was odd and she also likes writing about outsiders. All the authors agreed that genres don't have specific job, though there are certain expectations with every story. Malinda said that all stories already exist, their job is to interpret it in different ways. Michael was hilarious for the whole thing and had really interesting stories about writing and reviewers including telling one negative reviewer to stop reading his books because she is gonna hate them anyway.

Second Panel: Magic Beyond the Grave with Roshani Chokshi, Zoraida Cordova, and Daniel Jose Older

These guys were absolutely hysterical. They had no moderator so they just had a conversation and wow, this panel was my favorite ever. Some of the serious parts of conversation included taking pride in their writing. Rewriting mythologies and giving strength to female characters which the patriarchy took away. Facing difficulties as non-white writers. DJ Older started taking selfies in the middle. It was great.

These are all the books that I got signed:

Yap, most of them are by Victoria Schwab. I’m not sorry.

And this is all the swag I got:

“My disease is as rare as it is famous. Basically, I’m allergic to the world.”