Top Ten Tuesday: Authors I Met for the First Time at DBF

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by the Broke and the Bookish. Today’s theme was:

FREEBIE — your choice!

A week and a half ago, I went to the Decatur Book Festival in Decatur, GA and had an AMAZING time. I met SO many incredible authors. Like, a ridiculous amount of authors. So I wanted to do a post about all of them. But then I realized I met way more than 10. SO I’ve decided to narrow it down to the top ten um, eighteen authors I met for the first time (because we all know if I did a list of authors I met/saw again, people like Becky Albertalli, David Arnold, Andrew Smith, Jeff Zentner, Renee Ahdieh would be ALL over it). My list is ten eighteen of the seriously wonderful authors I met for the first time at the Decatur Book Festival. BUT FIRST, here’s a pic from the PG-13 panel I moderated on Saturday (pic of my second panel farther down).

Andrew Smith, Adam Silvera, me, Becky Albertalli, (sweaty) David Arnold

Okay, the authors I met for the first time (and just completely adored) were:

Adam Silvera, author of the incredible More Happy Than Not. Adam was on my PG-13 panel on Saturday. He’s wonderful and kind and funny and SO SO TALL. Just look at that picture of my panel above. So. Tall.

Nicola Yoon, author of the recently released Everything, Everything, which we all know I LOVED. Look how adorable Nicola is!

Sarah Dessen, I MET SARAH DESSEN WHO NEEDS NO INTRODUCTION. I’ve been a fan of Sarah’s since I was FOURTEEN. I chatted with her (and some other wonderful authors) for about 30 minutes Friday night and it was amazing.

Check out the photobomb appearance by David Arnold and Ash Parsons.

Drew Daywalt, author of The Day the Crayons Quit & The Day the Crayons Came Home, two of my absolute favorite picture books EVER. Drew read the second book during his panel, and he was hilarious. Then in the signing line, he recognized me from Twitter, so that was cool. *tries to play it cool. fails*

I’m cheating and putting my entire Thicker Than Water panel as one: Una LaMarche (most recent book: Don’t Fail Me Now), Katie M. Stout (Hello, I Love You), Marie Marquardt (Dream Things True), Elizabeth Lenhard (most recent book: Our Song), who were all so welcoming and wonderful.

Elizabeth Lenhard, Katie M. Stout, me, Una LaMarche, Marie Marquardt

Tommy Wallach, author of We All Looked Up, and Will Walton, author of Anything Could Happen. They were both on the Identity Crisis panel on Saturday and they were the coolest. So very sweet and kind.

David Levithan, another author who needs no introduction (but in case you need it, David has written A LOT of books, including Two Boys Kissing, Every Day, Boy Meets Boy, and co-authored several books like Will Grayson, Will Grayson with John Green).

Nicole Castroman, author of the 2016 debut Blackhearts, which I got an eARC of and I can’t wait to read it! I actually helped Nicole figure out her author signature which was a lot of fun.

Libba Bray, the unbelievably cool author of The Diviners (and lots of other books). Libba freaking lip-synced to Bohemian Rhapsody on stage (and then actually SANG the song) for the YA Truth or Dare panel. Yeah, she’s awesome. And very nice.

Me, Nicole Castroman, Libba Bray, Adam Silvera, and Andrew Smith

I also met the lovely Sabaa Tahir, Aisha Saeed, Ash Parsons, Gwenda Bond, and Nic Stone, and I just want to take everyone home with me.

Holy crap, you guys. Now that it’s all written out, I can’t believe how incredibly lucky I was to meet all of these amazing authors. They were all so welcoming and…just seriously cool. I had an awesome time moderating my two panels, and I wish I could go back right now! The festival was so much fun and the schedule of panels (especially the children’s and teen stages, which are managed by Diane Capriola) were really interesting, diverse, and absolutely fantastic.

How did you use your TTT freebie?