• Team up with your favorite YA authors in a fast-paced game of drawing charades to guess the name of YA book titles and familiar tropes or phrases found in popular YA novels. Teams led by YA author "artists" will battle it out to see who can decipher the most clues before time runs out. Expect raucous fun and prizes galore!
• Fierce Reads Author Appearances: Mary Pearson & Ann Aguirre

• Event with Cecelia Ahern, Rae Carson and Mary Pearson as moderators

• Join Eloisa James and some of her author friends to make Glitzy Posters for your Bulletin Boards and Social media sites. We will have fun creating sparkly book cover posters that will be used in stores, libraries as well as photographed for Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter. A sure-fire, dynamic way to get more hits on your social media accounts as well as jazzing up the walls of your stores, schools and libraries. Limited space available for this workshop. Please reserve your space online. 
• Fierce Reads Author Appearances: Marie Rutkoski

• Everyone was 16 once and age is just a number. If you love YA novels (even though you're a little more “A” and maybe a little less “Y”), be loud, be proud and win some prizes at our awesome YA trivia game! Find kindred spirits who claim the Dauntless faction or boast out loud and proud that they're Team Jacob and have a blast with the authors as they cheer right alongside you. Trivia categories may include: YA Books-to-TV/Film, Hunky Heroes, Love Triangles, Swoon-worthy Sci-Fi, Mythology, and more! First 200 Attendees will receive a tote filled with books and swag!
• Fierce Reads Author Appearances: Marie Rutkoski and Cecelia Ahern

• Want to know first-hand the YA books publishers are projecting will be the biggest sellers of the upcoming season? Hear five editors share their excitement about a title they are keenly enthusiastic about and why. Publishers include Harper Teen, Macmillan, Harlequin Teen, Scholastic and Disney. Copies of these titles will be available at the end of the program. This program will be limited to booksellers and librarians only.

• YA authors have been fighting the mainstream definition of "normal" to reflect the way real teens, think, look, and feel since the 70’s when Judy Blume and Walter Dean Myers hit bookshelves with novels like Blubber and Hoops. But are we pushing hard enough to reflect the diversity of our readers? We've assembled a group of highly acclaimed YA authors to debate how far YA lit has come and how far we still need to go.
• Fierce Reads Author Appearances: Kami Garcia

• The “Y” in YA might stand for “young,” but teens deal with serious challenges and big emotions—the thrill of first love and the pain of heartbreak, the power that comes from finding yourself and the confusion that comes from making mistakes. As writers, how do we create authentic characters and plotlines? Are there limits when writing for a teen audience? Join us and for an unforgettable discussion with a panel of YA authors who aren’t afraid to push the envelope and keep it real.
• Fierce Reads Author Appearances: Kami Garcia

• Need a sugar rush? We'll be your new candy crush! Join Fierce Reads and Swoon Reads for the *sweetest* event at RT. Chat books with fellow YA lovers, hang out and color (!) in your exclusive Fierce Reads coloring book, and feed your sweet tooth at our candy bar! We'll also be giving away some of our hottest YA titles, t-shirts, and totes. Come to meet authors like Cecelia Ahern, Mary Pearson, Marie Rutkoski, Sandy Hall, and Kami Garcia, and stay for the candy and coloring. We can't wait to meet you!
• Fierce Reads Author Appearances: Cecelia Ahern, Mary Pearson, Marie Rutkoski, & Sandy Hall

• Need a sugar rush? We'll be your new candy crush! Join Fierce Reads and Swoon Reads for the *sweetest* event at RT. Chat books with fellow YA lovers, hang out and color (!) in your exclusive Fierce Reads coloring book, and feed your sweet tooth at our candy bar! We'll also be giving away some of our hottest YA titles, t-shirts, and totes. Come to meet authors like Cecelia Ahern, Mary Pearson, Marie Rutkoski, Sandy Hall, and Kami Garcia, and stay for the candy and coloring. We can't wait to meet you!
• Fierce Reads Author Appearances: Cecelia Ahern, Mary Pearson, Marie Rutkoski, Sandy Hall, Ann Aguirre, Kami Garcia, and Jenny Moyer

• Join your fellow Gryffindors, Slytherins, Hufflepuffs, and Ravenclaws for a magical House Cup competition that would make Albus Dumbledore proud! YA author “prefects” will lead each Hogwarts house as readers answer Harry Potter trivia questions to earn points for their houses. Bonus points will be awarded to readers for wearing Harry Potter-themed costumes or clothing, cheering for teammates, and mischief managed. Find out which house is worthy of the Cup!
• Fierce Reads Author Appearances: Kami Garcia

• Test your knowledge of Young Adult lit in this Family Feud/trivia mash-up designed just for Teen Day! A combination of YA authors and audience volunteers form two “families” and face-off in the ultimate trivia battle. Who will win? Survey says: Join us to find out!
• Fierce Reads Author Appearances: Cecelia Ahern & Mary Pearson

• Back by popular demand! If you ask a dozen authors how to write a novel, you will get a dozen different answers. Writing is not a science, but there are tips and techniques that can make you a stronger writer. Join us as the bestselling authors on this panel share their road-tested tips for everything from where to find ideas and the pros and cons of outlining to tackling “the mushy middle” and pushing through writer’s block. Bring your questions!
• Fierce Reads Author Appearances: Kami Garcia

• Authors and readers team up and answer a host of YA lit questions like: Which District hid Katniss after she left the arena for the last time in the novel The Hunger Games? In Divergent, what are Four’s fears? How many books are in Sara Shepard series Pretty Little Liars? As they race to beat the clock, team members write down their answers, which are not revealed until time runs out. Volunteer to join a team or play along from the audience!
• Fierce Reads Authors in Appearance: Sandy Hall & Marie Rutkowski

• Join HarperTeen/Epic Reads as we celebrate all things YA! Mingle with over 60 of your favorite YA authors, including your host Kami Garcia, Julie Kagawa, Ellen Hopkins, Lauren Oliver, Kiera Cass, Anna Todd, Alyson Noel, Victoria Aveyard, Kody Keplinger, Kass Morgan, Amanda Hocking, Danielle Paige, Julie Murphy, Alexandra Bracken, Tamora Pierce, Renee Ahdieh, Colleen Houck, Richelle Mead, and so many others! Enjoy the chance to chat and take photos with the authors, get their autographs, join them for a game of YA trivia, take pics in photo booth, and more! Don't forget to pick up your coveted Teen Day Goody Bag*, full of books and cool swag! All Teen Day Party attendees will also receive entry to the YA Goody Room! * NOTE: Every teen who purchases a ticket to Teen Day will receive a numbered bracelet to redeem for a Goody Bag at the party. After teens receive their bags, additional Goody Bags will be available on a first come basis -- for as long as the bags last.
• Fierce Reads Author in Appearance: Kami Garcia

I’ve had the opportunity to speak to a lot of high school creative writing and English classes over the past six months. I’ve had the opportunity to speak to a lot of different groups, actually, but there’s something so very special about speaking to high school students.

For starters, they’re the audience I was targeting when I wrote A Little Something Different. But what I didn’t realize as I wrote the story was that I would crave their feedback. I want to hear what teenagers think of A Little Something Different more than any other age group, good or bad.

But it was during one of those creative writing classes that a girl raised her hand, almost like a wave. It wasn’t shy, but it wasn’t bold, it was like, “Hey, if you have a second, I have something to say.”

When I looked over at her to acknowledge her casual hand-raise, I smiled and she grinned back widely. “I don’t really have a question,” she said. “But I wanted to thank you for writing about Inga and Pam. I’ve never read any other books about adult lesbians and, well, it gave me something to look forward to. So thanks.”

I was instantly teary-eyed. I had worked hard on Inga and Pam. They were easily my favorite (human) characters in the book.

During the planning process for A Little Something Different, I had come to a sort of terrible realization. After I decided to make the professor and the professor’s spouse women, I sat there trying to think of other young adult novels with adult lesbian characters and came up empty handed. Young adult books were my forte. I was a teen librarian for goodness sake! I should have been able to think of books that had adult lesbian characters.

I’m not saying there aren’t any books out there featuring adult lesbian characters, but where I could come up with books off the top of my featuring adult gay men, the same wasn’t true for women. There’s a hole there in YA lit and I wanted Inga and Pam to help fill it.

Long story short: diversity matters. It’s not too much to ask for, to lose yourself in a book and find someone you relate to within its pages. Everyone deserves that, but especially teenagers.  It’s time to help them find pieces of their identity anyway we can. And I hope that’s what I’m doing with every book I write.

- Sandy Hall