We’re hosting a Pride Picnic in celebration of Pride Month! Come along for an afternoon of feasting on rainbow-coloured food (and Oreos, duh) and talking about all your favourite queer YA novels.
We’ll be meeting at the top of Fed Square (near ACMI), and if it’s raining or cold, we’ll be moving inside The Atrium. Please bring a rug and something yum to share! Bonus points if it’s cake. Everyone loves cake.
We hope to see you there!
Today we hosted our May Book Meet, where we were joined by a bunch of passionate Melbourne YA readers to discuss our Book of the Month, I Was Born for This by Alice Oseman. As usual, we had a lovely afternoon that involved drinking coffee, talking about fandoms, and swooning over the gorgeous characters in this novel.
We’re already looking forward to our next Book Meet, where we’ll be discussing A Thousand Perfect Notes by C.G. Drews. It’s going to be great! Free tickets will be released soon, so make sure you keep an eye out on our social media platforms.
Whether you’ve been to a ton of our Book Meets before or you’re interested in coming along for the first time, we’d love to see you there!
An emotionally charged story of music, abuse and, ultimately, hope.
Beck hates his life. He hates his violent mother. He hates his home. Most of all, he hates the piano that his mother forces him to play hour after hour, day after day. He will never play as she did before illness ended her career and left her bitter and broken. But Beck is too scared to stand up to his mother, and tell her his true passion, which is composing his own music – because the least suggestion of rebellion on his part ends in violence.
When Beck meets August, a girl full of life, energy and laughter, love begins to awaken within him and he glimpses a way to escape his painful existence. But dare he reach for it?
Order your copy of A Thousand Perfect Notes from Dymocks, Booktopia, or Book Depository.
And for everyone who’s not in Melbourne, we also host a monthly Twitter chat the Monday before our official Book Meet. #YARoomChat is an hour-long conversation about our current Book of the Month – and there are no spoilers, so don’t worry if you haven’t finished the book yet!Read More »
How are we already more than a quarter of the way through the year? These past three months have absolutely flown by, full of amazing launches, brilliant events, and more books than we can keep track of without Goodreads’s help. So we want to celebrate everything we’ve done in 2018 so far!
What an incredible night! We both had such an amazing time at the Penguin Showcase last year, where we heard all about the upcoming YA novels we could get our hands on, but this year the showcase was even more of anticipated event. And that’s because we got to see Love, Simon! Eleni Hale and Margot McGovern were also in attendance, and it was lovely to get a chance to chat with them. Love, Simon was definitely the highlight of the night though — we laughed, we cried, and we ate more Oreos than we probably should have. It was amazing.
At the end of January, we had our most anticipated bookish event that we’d been planning for over six months — YA Day. YA Day was a one day bookish convention, where we had four panels, thirteen guest panelists, and over 80 people in attendance! We’d never done something as ambitious as this event, but we couldn’t be more thrilled with how the day turned out and the amount of support we received. We can’t wait for YA Day 2019!
Are you ready for our most exciting announcement since we told y’all that we were going to be taking over the Melbourne YA bookish scene with our monthly meet ups and online chats?
Are you ready to hear about the best YA event in Melbourne this January?
Are you ready for…
That’s right! We’ve been hinting about doing something like this for a while now, and we’re so thrilled to announce that we’re doing our first one-day festival. We’re showcasing not only some of your favourite Aussie authors, but also some of Australia’s best booktubers and bloggers!
It’s going to be a full day of discussions and Q&As, and there are a ton of bookish prizes to be won! Refreshments will be provided.
11.00: Arrive
11.15 – 12.00: Panel 1: Booktube Brilliance
12.15 – 1.00: Panel 2: Teens to the Front
1.00 – 1.20: Lunch
1.30 – 2.15: Panel 3: Aussie Authors
2.30 – 3.15: Panel 4: Insights from the Industry
3.30: End
We hope you’re as excited for this amazing day as we are! Please scroll down for more information about the four panels, and who our fantastic panelists will be.
UPDATE: We’ve just released more tickets to YA Day! Grab yours here.
Chami is an twenty year-old BookTuber at ‘ReadLikeWildFire’ (Soon to be called ‘IsThatChami’) who spends most of her time in a small little corner of the internet, harbouring copious amounts of books and unhealthy reading habits. After all the whining and crying about fictional characters that happened in her youth, Chami decided in late 2014 that enough was enough. So she looked to the joys of YouTube for people who understood her pain and immense love for literature, and alas, she found a home.
YouTube | Website | Twitter | Instagram
Lily is a a 19 year old booktuber, who has been making book related videos for about a year and a half.
She reviews books she’s recently read, as well as create a variety of book related content on her YouTube channel.
Piéra Forde is a BookTuber, actor and animal enthusiast who is known for her honest, quirky book reviews and book to screen adaptations of some popular YA books.
After spending most of her childhood with her face stuck in a book and no one to talk with about them, Piéra took to YouTube to share her love of all things fantasy and since then has amassed a large following of other bookworms with similar passions.
Lissa is an avid reader with “Nevernight” by Jay Kristoff, Queens of Geek by Jen Wilde, Akarnae by Lynette Noni and the Fairyland series by Catherynne M. Valente among her favourites.
She is a passionate fan of Hamilton and Sofia the First. She also spends way too much time stalking people on Twitter.
Sam Barnes is a recent year-twelve graduate who is most noted for his sarcasm, self-deprecation and sass. When not procrastinating, he prefers jamming out to Billie Eilish than reading a book, and can be found editing videos surrounded by week-old iced coconut milk coffee mugs.
In the near future, he aims to focus on his passions of photography and writing, but in the mean time, remains to do nothing productive. You can find him online below.
Anisha is a 17 year old bookish person obsessed with – wait for it – reading (wow, who would have thought?).
She also loves baking and rainy days.
But in all seriousness reading is the best which is why she started her blog, YouTube channel and bookstagram!
Blog | YouTube | Twitter | Instagram
Shivaun Plozza is a Children’s and YA writer. Her debut novel about a girl called Frankie is titled Frankie and her activity book about medieval Europe is called Medieval Europe. Because she’s inventive like that.
Her short story ‘The Point’ is part of Where the Shoreline Used to Be, an anthology of YA fiction. Other short works have appeared in Above Water, Vivid and The Victorian Writer. When she’s not writing she’s beavering away as an editor and manuscript assessor. Her next YA book is Tin Heart.
Alison is the author of the queer sci fi YA book Ida, a maker of zines and co-editor of Concrete Queers.
They write stories about weird stuff, magic, gender and plants.
Michael Pryor writes fantasy and science fiction, mostly for teenagers. He has published more than thirty-five novels and 50 something short stories. He is one of the co-publishers of Aurealis, Australia’s longest running Fantasy and SF magazine.
He has been shortlisted for the Aurealis Award seven times, and seven of his books have been CBCA Notable books.
Catriona is has been making bookish videos on her BookTube channel, Little Book Owl, for over six years.
When she’s not reading, she can be found staring at her bookshelves longingly or playing video games. She is the Digital & Social Media Coordinator for Bloomsbury Publishing Australia.
Kate O’Donnell is a writer, editor and bookseller specialising in children’s and young adult literature.
She has a BA in History and French from the University of Melbourne and studied Professional Writing and Editing at RMIT.
Untidy Towns is her first novel.
Danielle Binks is a writer and reviewer, with a particular interest in youth literature. In 2016 she joined literary agency, Jacinta di Mase Management, as ‘Agent-at-Large’ – seeking authors of Young Adult (YA) and Middle Grade (MG) fiction works.
In 2017, she edited and contributed to Begin, End, Begin: A #LoveOzYA Anthology, of new Australian young adult writing – inspired by the #LoveOzYA movement – and released by HarperCollins.
Nadja is a publicist at Text Publishing.
First and foremost, we’d like to take the time to thank Alison for answering this informal interview, as well as the ongoing support they’ve given both Sarah and I this month!
For those of you reading, Alison Evans is the genius behind our BOTM ‘Ida’, which hit shelves this month, and was voted by YOU to be selected for our very first book club read! And might we add, what an amazing selection! Alison was kind enough to answer a few questions for us and I’m here to share their answers. LET’S GO!
Favourite season?
Spring.
Favourite genre?
There are too many that I love, though if I had to choose, Spec Fic is my favourite at the moment.
Favourite novel?
Right now, The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M Danforth.
Favourite quote?
“It is words that are to blame. They are the wildest, freest, most irresponsible, most un-teachable of all things. Of course, you can catch them and sort them and place them in alphabetical order in dictionaries. But words do not live in dictionaries; they live in the mind. If you want proof of this, consider how often in moments of emotion when we most need words we find none.” –Virginia Woolf
Favourite movie?
Princess Mononoke
Favourite TV Show?
I’ve only seen the first three seasons but I really love The X-Files.
Favourite Disney film?
Alice in Wonderland
Favourite author/s (if you can choose)?
Jorge Luis Borges for exploring such huge ideas so succinctly and beautifully.
Favourite dessert?
Fruit pies with custard and/or ice cream.
Pizza or Pasta?
Pizza
Gelato or Ice cream?
Ice cream
Movies or TV Shows?
TV shows
Disney Channel or Cartoon Network?
Cartoon Network, though to be fair I haven’t ever watched the Disney Channel.
Paperback or Hardback?
Paperback
Physical Books of E-books?
E-books just for sheer convenience. In my perfect world every physical book purchase would come with an e-book copy. I guess an enby can dream!
Bookmarks or doggie ears?
Doggie ears, I am literally incapable of using bookmarks properly, somehow.
Morning or Night?
Night
Now that we’ve gotten to know Alison a little more, it’s time for some book related questions! (Don’t worry, we’ve kept the spoilers out of it)
What influenced you to be a writer? Was writing always something you wanted to pursue? Did any authors or idols influence your decision?
I always loved reading and then I discovered fan fiction and it blew my teenage mind. Anyone could write stuff, and their stuff was really good! If they could do it, I could do it. Then I started writing AU stuff, and then realised that my AU stuff was so AU it was basically not fan fic anymore, so I started writing my own things. And my first true love, Harry Potter, definitely influenced me the most when I first started. Rowling’s characters are so alive and I love them, I wanted to create worlds and people like that.
If you could change or add anything to your novel, would you? And if so, what would you change/add?
Don’t ask me this or I’ll cry!!! I haven’t looked at the printed book too closely because I now there will be things I want to change.
What’s your favourite part of the writing process?
Writing the very start for the first time because anything can happen, or doing the second draft where I get to tighten everything and get rid of plot holes and make sure characters don’t switch names halfway through for no reason (the reason is because during the first draft I forget names a lot).
What about your least favourite parts?
When most of the editing is done and you’ve read the thing a hundred times in the past week and you KNOW something is missing but you just can’t figure out what.
Did you ever have moments of self-doubt? How did you overcome those emotions?
Literally all the time. I try to remember that everyone feels like this and it’s okay. I guess I just keep pushing through despite the self-doubt. NaNoWriMo is actually very good practice for this! There’s no time to question yourself, you just have to write.
Who was the first person you ever shared your writing with?
My mum! She’s always so encouraging.
Was your novel always going to have the sci-fi time travel aspect? If not, what changed/influenced your decision?
Yep! The parallel universes were the seed of the whole story from the very beginning. I’ve always loved sci fi but so often the characters were the same protagonist again and again, the straight cis white guy who gets the girl and the gender binary stays very much intact.
How has your identity formed the characters you’ve written about?
Like I said above, I wanted more characters like me in Sci-Fi. The words “bisexual” and “genderqueer” are not very often used and so I put them in there, explicitly, so that queer teens could see they weren’t alone.
What’s one piece of advice you’d give to aspiring writers?
Write a lot and keep going! Someone’s going to love it.
Where can we find you on social media?
I am mostly over on twitter as @_budgie, Instagram as alisonwritesthings, occasionally on Facebook as facebook.com/alisonwritesthings and even less occasionally on Tumblr as alisonwritesthings.tumblr.com. I’ve also got a website!
If you loved this interview, and would like to ask Alison any questions we may have forgotten, consider yourself personally invited to our meet up on Sunday the 29th of January! More info here!
See?
Authors aren’t that scary after all~
Last Sunday, we hosted our first event as an establishing YA book club at the Botanic Gardens in Melbourne. To say we were excited about meeting all the people we’ve talked to online and fangirled with over the months would be an understatement! Despite the countless individuals who found themselves getting lost as they tried to find us in the massive gardens, we were absolutely amazed with how much support (and food!) we received on this beautiful sunny day.
The picnic took off to an amazing start as more and more people kept arriving and conversations continued to grow. Not only did we speak about the books we were excited about and the events we couldn’t wait for — but we also spoke about our lives outside the bookish community. This relaxed setting allowed us really to get to know each other, which we thought was the perfect inaugural meet-up. We began the meet-up sitting in a circle where we introduced ourselves and where we blog about books, as well as our current reads, favourite genres, as well as our most-adored books, which provided the perfect platform to start new conversations.Read More »
After receiving votes from most of you on Twitter, we’re super excited to announce that our Book Of The Month for January is Ida by Alison Evans!
Ida is published by Bonnier and is available at many bookstores in Australia right now, including Dymocks! Make sure you grab a copy so you can join in all the fun and come along to our meet-up at the end of January. It’s also fantastic that Alison is a local Melbourne author, and they’ll be joining us to discuss their latest novel! More details will be revealed soon.
How do people decide on a path, and find the drive to pursue what they want?
Ida struggles more than other young people to work this out. She can shift between parallel universes, allowing her to follow alternative paths.
One day Ida sees a shadowy, see-through doppelganger of herself on the train. She starts to wonder if she’s actually in control of her ability, and whether there are effects far beyond what she’s considered.
How can she know, anyway, whether one universe is ultimately better than another? And what if the continual shifting causes her to lose what is most important to her, just as she’s discovering what that is, and she can never find her way back?
Ida is an intelligent, diverse and entertaining novel that explores love, loss and longing, and speaks to the condition of an array of overwhelming, and often illusory, choices.
Hi friends! If you haven’t seen already from our Twitter page, we’re having a picnic to celebrate the official launching of The YA Room! The picnic will be held on Sunday the 15th of January from 2 – 5pm at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne. We’d love to see you there! There’ll be tea, cakes and sweets, as well as book-swapping and bookstagram opportunities!
To make this afternoon the best it can possibly be, here’s what you can do to help:
It just wouldn’t be a bookish picnic without all of you lovely people there. We want to see as many of your faces as possible and get to know you! As this will be our first official meet-up before our regular monthly book club sessions, this is a great opportunity to meet some like-minded fangirls and fanboys and get all the inside goss about the year ahead with The YA Room.
We’re going to be doing a lot of baking in preparation for the day, but the more cakes and cookies the better! It’s no secret that the bookish community loves sweets. So if you have the time to bake something or even bring something that you’ve bought to share with other people, that would be much appreciated!
We’re planning on doing a fancy book swap, so if you’d like to be involved with that, please bring along one book that’s in good quality and you think others might not have already – and wrap it up! Everyone who brings a book will receive a book and we don’t want you to miss out! We’ll tell you the rules on the day, but it will be fun and involve some sneaky stealing too… but that’s all part of the game!
If you have any questions about the day or anything The YA Room-related, please leave them in the comments! And you can find a map of where exactly we’re meeting so you don’t get lost down below. Thanks, everyone!
Hi everyone! Sarah and Alex here, introducing the first official Melbourne-based YA book club – The YA Room! We’re launching in 2017, but we’re very excited to share what we’ve been working on with you and meet some more passionate, enthusiastic YA readers!
We’re currently finding the perfect venue for our monthly meet-ups, finalising all our social media platforms and working with publishers and booksellers to organise some really great things for our book club. We’ll keep you all updated with our progress and we’d love to hear your suggestions to! What kind of books would you like to read along with us? What authors would you like to see at our meetings? We’d love to know!
But in order for The YA Room to be a success, we need your help. We’d love to reach out to as many readers as possible and meet likeminded fangirls and fanboys, so you can help us out by sharing our social media sites! We’d really appreciate your support.
Twitter: @TheYARoom_MELB
Facebook: The YA Room
Instagram: @theyaroom
YouTube: The YA Room
Enquiries: theyaroom@gmail.com
If you’d like to know more about us, click onto our About page. If you’ve got any further questions, please leave a comment down below!
The YA Room 