2016 North Texas Teen Book Festival: information + a giveaway!


There's less than two weeks left until my library's biggest event of the year: the 2016 North Texas Teen Book Festival. Months of hard work will culminate into 15 hours worth of festival time (over 2 days) that include 69 panels/conversations/keynotes/educational sessions featuring 75 authors, 4 YA BookTubers, 3 YA reviewers/writers, and 2 YA podcasters. This post will contain information about the festival (setup, panels, components, etc) and at the very bottom is a giveaway so keep reading to get to that part!
 
Who's coming?
Well, in addition to librarians, teachers, teens, tweens, and readers from North Texas, Other Parts of Texas, and even Other States That Aren't Texas, there are those 75 authors. 
Download a copy of the list here (PDF)


And, as I said above, there are 4 BookTubers featured in a special panel to help attendees learn the art of being a YouTuber. 

Sarah Enni of First Draft and Sara Roberts of Adventures in YA will be leading a YA podcast panel (featuring a couple guest authors), and Katie of Mundie Moms, Mandy Curtis of A Nerdy World & Forever YA, and freelance freelance writer Rachel Paxton will be discussing reviews and other ways to "write about writing" in a non-author writing panel. 
 
What are the panels about?/What's the schedule?
This year, the festival is two days long instead of just one. Friday, April 22 is dedicated to providing professional development opportunities to educators of tweens and teens, and Saturday, April 23 is the main festival that's open to the public.

Friday Schedule:
12 PM: Author luncheon hosted by Forever YA featuring Sarah Dessen, E. Lockhart, and Ruta Sepetys. Tickets are available for purchase here (link available until Saturday, April 16). Meet & greet/signing with the authors to follow lunch. This is open to anyone who buys a ticket.

The following professional developments are part of Books Books Books: A Symposium for Educators, and will feature guest authors in discussion with professors of library science from Sam Houston State University. These sessions are open to educators of tweens and teens.
1 PM: Diversity is More than a Hashtag
2 PM: Is Any Book Ever Safe? Selection vs Censorship
3 PM: Label Making vs Label Breaking

More information about the sessions can be found here (PDF).

Saturday Schedule:
8 AM: Convention center opens. Book sales, swag sales, and the passing out of Speed Dating begins
8:15 AM: Middle Grade Keynote
9 AM: Panels
10 AM: Panels, Speed Date with a Book round 1
11 AM: Panels, Speed Date with a Book round 2
12 PM: Panels
1 PM: Panels, Speed Date with a Book round 3
2 PM: Panels, Speed Date with a Book round 4
3 PM: Young Adult Keynote
3:30 PM: Signing starts
5 PM: Convention center closes, festival ends

As for what the panels are about, there are 66 panels on Saturday featuring 2-6 authors or other presenters.

8:15 AM
MG Keynote

9 AM
Where's My Super Suit?
School Days, School Daze
Clean Slate
3 Witches, 2 Zombies, and a Werewolf
*"Just a Small Town Girl"
Tickle Your Funny Bone
Fiercely Fantastic
Quarantine
New Kid on the Block
Alternate History
A Class of Their Own

10 AM
Tick Tock
The Pawn
*Boarding Pass
A Tyranny of Petticoats
"867-5309/Jenny"
Zootopia
The Research Lab
Paranormal Tendencies
Where the Action Is
Oh, the Horror!
Lean on Me
You've Got a Friend in Me

11 AM
Lone Star All-Stars
The Book Boyfriends
The Maze Writer: A Conversation
Time Turners
"We're Young and We're Reckless"
Angels & Demons
I'll Be There for You
Final Edit
Do You Believe in Magic
Podcast Discussion Panel

12 PM
Dystopia Dynasty
My Lady Jane
All the Feels
A Little Bit of Magic
"Now That I'm Without Your Kisses"
Double, Double Toil and Trouble
Southern State of Mind

1 PM
Pass the Popcorn
TAYSHAS Spotlight
*Daring Reads
Middle Grade Mania
"Cause This is Thriller, Thriller Night"
All the World's a Stage
One Story at a Time
When Alex Meets Alex: A Conversation
Feel the Heat
Getting Graphic
The Here and Now
BookTube Discussion Panel

2 PM
*Hi-Fi Sci-Fi
Flights of Fantasy
Books That Rock!
Reimagination Station
"But Now We're Stressed Out"
Touch of Paranormal
Reading the Rainbow
Superhero Origins
Is This the Real Life?
History Repeats Itself
Tragic Circumstances
Writing About Writing Discussion Panel

3 PM
YA Keynote

For full panel information, including recommended target audience (MG or YA), descriptions, and authors, click here (PDF). But if you look hard, you'll see four panels have been starred. That's because I'm moderating them! That's right! You can visit me during "Just a Small Town Girl" at 9, Boarding Pass at 10, Daring Reads at 1, and Hi-Fi Sci-Fi at 2!

My attempt to organize all the books I want/need to read before the festival.
Some are for the panels I'm moderating, others are just for fun.
 
What else is there to do aside from the panels?
In addition to the panels, the festival will include speed date with a book (a program that allows teen attendees to take home a free book written by a festival author), swag and book sales, and a massive book signing. You can find an overview of all these components here (PDF). You can find a list of swag shop items here (PDF)—includes fast passes for the signing line!!!—and food available for purchase here (PDF). Unfortunately there is not a list of books that will be available for purchase, but books will be sold by Half Price Books, and you can count on each author's most recent work being available.
 
Basically, the festival is going to be a giant meeting of YA and MG fans, and it's going to be tons of fun. For advice about attending NTTBF 16, check out the Irving Library's recent advice post. If you have any questions, festival staff (yeah, this includes me) is always available via social media or email.
 
http://www.northtexasteenbookfestival.com/ https://twitter.com/NTTBFest https://www.facebook.com/NTTBFest

 
Giveaway opportunity:
If you are attending NTTBF, you can enter to win a fast pass for the signing line! All you have to do is take a picture, post a video, a poem (book spine poetry or just text), a blog post (like this one), or some other imaginative creation and post it on Twitter or Facebook. Tag the festival's account and use #NTTBF16, and you'll be entered to win! For full details, see here.

 
Upcoming Events:
The Irving Public Library hosts many author events for both tweens and teens! Here's a look at the upcoming event schedule:

April 22-23: NTTBF
April 24: Soman Chainani @ Valley Ranch Irving Library
May 5: Amy Tintera & Julie Murphy @ South Irving Library
May 7: Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff @ Southlake B&N (not a library event, but I'm moderating)
May 15: Meg Cabot princess party @ South Irving Library
May 16: Jenny Martin Marked launch party @ South Irving Library
TBA May event
June: Matthew Quick @ South Irving Library
TBA summer reading panel in July
 
Actual Giveaway !

Congratulations on making it through this epic post! Your reward is the opportunity to win a box of books! This giveaway is open to the US because of the astronomical cost of shipping a massive box of books. Must be 13+ to enter. Ends at midnight on Thursday, April 21. Prize includes ALL the books in the picture below PLUS any book by any one of the authors listed above, not including preorders (so you can choose The Winner's Kiss, The Glass Sword, The Mirror King, etc). Also, all of these books will be signed. Good luck!
 
shiny prizes!
 

 
Please note this giveaway is hosted by me, Mary, NOT the North Texas Teen Book Festival.
 

20 comments:

  1. I would love Shattered by Mancusi. I have 1 and 3 but need 2. I am so jealous. We have a small Teen Author Fest coming near me in June I am going to but the authors haven't been listed yet.

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    1. I need to finish Mari's Scorched series. I really enjoyed number one!

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  2. 11:00 am one. I would love to hear the discussions on Book Boyfriends, Time Turners, and "We're Young and We're Reckless"

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  3. The My Lady Jane panel OR any panel Gwenda Bond is on cause she's hysterical.

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  4. I'd probably really enjoy the speed dating panels. Thanks for the giveaway!

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  5. The speed dating panels sound like so much fun!!!

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  6. The speed dating and the signings all sound great! And the educator panels too.

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  7. Can't wait for NTTBF 2016! We're driving over from Shreveport for the second year!

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  8. And I'm all about THE PAWN panel!!!

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  9. So many good ones! I think I'd love the Dystopia Dynasty panel. Thanks!

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  10. So many good ones! I think I'd love the Dystopia Dynasty panel. Thanks!

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  11. A question I would ask an author would be "What draws you to this genre?"

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  12. I would love the "But Now We're Stressed Out" (we've all been there), Dystopia Dynasty, and the My Lady Jane panels (among others, of course).

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  13. I'm all about speed dating with a book. I do something similar to this in my library and the kids really like the change up!

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  14. I want to go to ALL of the panels! But the one I think it wouldn't be right for me to miss would be "867-5309/Jenny"

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  15. My question for authors is kind of strange. I like to compare last meals, if you knew it was the last time you would eat what would your meal be? It's always interesting to find out the answers.

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  16. I would love to see the 3 Witches, 2 Zombies, and a Werewolf panel! sounds so fun!!

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  17. People who works there are some of the sweetest people I've met. Save yourself some time and just go there. Everyone at these venues is sweet and ask how you've been, even though normally staff keep their heads down.

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