Lisa Yee's Blog: Yay for YA in Bloom!!!!

Last weekend, despite this article stating that when it comes to YA (Young Adult) books, there's nothing to read but depressing stuff, there was a joyful celebration of the genre.

YA in Bloom, presented by Bridge to Books, was held at Vroman's in Pasadena.

Fittingly, I had my launch party for my YA novel, ABSOLUTELY MAYBE, there!

(One of these "Maybe" launch party attendees was a featured author at YA in Bloom. I won't say who, but here's a hint: Andrew Smith, lower right. Also, can you find Jay Asher?)

My WARP SPEED and BOBBY THE BRAVE launch parties were also held at Vroman's!

Alyson Beecher and Alethea Allarey , the creative forces behind the event, had their collective fingers and toes crossed that, maybe, hopefully, oh please, please . . . maybe there would be 25 or 30 attendees?

They were wrong.

The event SOLD OUT and almost 100 educators, readers, writers and bloggers came for the lunch and lively talk about YA books . . .

(This was only half of the room!!!)

Here are Alethea and Alyson (far right and left, of photo -- not politics) with featured authors Cindy Pon, Jessica Brody, Andrew Smith, Angelina Jolie, Nancy Holder, and Katie Alender . . .

And we talked about writing and our favorite cereals (Lucky Charms) and candies (See's California Brittle) and other fun stuff.

Speaking of food, there was a scrumptious lunch . . .

And, of course, in honor of Peepy, there was a yellow cake . . .

It was so great to get all these YA book lovers together . . .

(That's Cindy Pon with Andrew Smith discussing mankind's search for meaning, the proper use of semicolons, and which cake they were going to eat.)

Kris Vreland and Nicole White talked about how to hand sell a book and there was a fabulous raffle and hundreds of dollars of books were given away to school, libraries and attendees . . .

Later, there was a book signing and Peeps and I got to see lots of new friends . . .

And no one left empty-handed -- everyone got a bag stuffed with book stuff and even a Vroman's discount!!!

(Peep not included.)

On a sad note, this was the very last day, the very last afternoon for Vroman's longtime Children's Book Department Manager, our friend and Celebrity Indie Bookstore Judge, Kris Vreeland.

But the GOOD NEWS is . . . Kris will now be at the wonderful Once Upon a Time in Montrose, CA!!!!!