Online book club launches YA event

Online young adult book club the YA Room has programmed a one-day young adult (YA) event in Melbourne at the Wheeler Centre.

‘YA Day’, which will be held on 28 January 2018, will consist of four discussion panels on the current state of young adult writing, publishing and promotion in Australia, designed to give younger readers a space to discuss their passion for YA as well as gain insight into the industry. Among the panellists are authors Shivaun Plozza, Alison Evans and Michael Pryor, author and bookseller Kate O’Donnell, Text publicist Nadja Poljo and Jacinta Di Mase Management agent Danielle Binks.

Organisers Sarah Hatch and Alexandra Panzarino have also launched an online crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter to raise funds for a larger venue, after tickets to the current event sold out in less than 12 hours.

Hatch and Panzarino said they were inspired to develop the program after successfully organising a meeting with YA Room members and the authors of the YA anthology Begin, End Begin (HarperCollins) at the Wheeler Centre in June this year.

‘We wanted to do something even bigger,’ said Hatch and Panzarino. ‘We want as many people to be able to come to our YA Day as possible, and of course, due to the limitations of space and being a non-profit book club, we decided to approach Kickstarter.’

Hatch and Panzarino said were inspired by VidCon and the Emerging Writers’ Festival, among other events, to put together the program and panellists, and they hope the event will be the beginning of an annual YA event.

For more information on the event and the YA Room, visit its website here.

Category: Junior Local news News