First up, BookExpo America–I woke up on May 31st at 4:30 AM for my 6 o’clock flight, but I wasn’t a bit tired–I think I was being super hyper or something. And then the whirlwind of the convention took me up. The place was so huge, and there were so many people. I met amazing authors–namely, the Young Adult authors I had been following for a bit of time: Erin Bowman, Sarah J. Maas, Susan Dennard, and Kat Zhang!

This is them! I am second from the right (Sarah wasn’t pictured.) 

I also met Robyn Schneider, whom I long admired, and was super sweet. 

But best of all, I met Grant Faulkner,the director of Nanowrimo–and I think I was kind of fangirling (which, by the way, Blogger wanted to correct to fang idling–which doesn’t make any more sense). He was amazing. Being the nice and humble person he was, he agreed to take a picture with me, and when I told him how much Nanowrimo had helped me, he seemed to be surprised and happy at the same time. 

After my two-day explosion of BEA had ended, my dad and I went down to Baltimore, and then to Philadelphia to meet author Andi Buchanan!
I emailed Andi back when I was 9, and her Daring Book for Girls book had come out. Eventually, we established a great friendship over email, where she is a brilliant mentor and we talk about books and writing and piano–I have been learning it for a long time, and Andi herself was once a concert pianist. And 5 years later, I was so incredibly glad to finally meet her!

And then there was the stack of books that I acquired. I think the picture speaks for itself. 

I just have to get through them all…

But I cannot express in words how INSPIRING this trip was–to connect with industry professionals, to meet the authors I wanted to meet for a long time, to tell them thank you. 

I wasn’t sure about this trip, because I wasn’t anywhere in the industry yet–after all, I still was an unknown writer. But BEA went above and beyond all my expectations, and I returned with a suitcase of books and a heart literally bursting with the energy and inspiration–just what I need for the next stages of my writing. 

Speaking of which, I will have another post up shortly, about the ongoing journey into Revisionland.