Trip Recap: ALA Annual 2018 + New Orleans

Hey everyone! Octavia and I got back from a wonderful trip to New Orleans for ALA Annual and I thought that a recap would not only be fun to read, it’d be something that would help us get back into blogging.

I was going to include a recap of Thursday but we didn’t do much other than spend the whole day getting to New Orleans.

Friday

This wasn’t part of the conference (at least not for us with our exhibits-only passes) but we spent the day doing touristy things. In the morning, we hung out around our hotel’s pool and had a nice breakfast there. Unfortunately, right at 10am, a radio came on that was way too loud to talk over so we started to get ready for the day.

After stopping to get lunch (which was DELICIOUS), we decided to walk down to the convention pick up our badges for the following day. If you follow me on instagram, then you know that the convention centre is GINORMOUS. It took us around 15 minutes to walk from one end to the other. We finally got to the conference but we were running a bit late so we took an uber down to our escape room.

The escape room we did was Jazz and murder-themed. We had to solve a murder that took place in some rich person’s ‘Jazz room’. It was really cool and I had so much fun. Later that evening, we did a ghost tour which was a bit annoying at first because of the heat but it quickly became super fun. I liked that it had more a true crime feel to it than totally supernatural because I would’ve been way scared otherwise. Plus our guide had a voice made for podcasts so I enjoyed listening to him.

Saturday

This was our first day of the actual conference and it was so different than what I expected. Because I usually go to Book Expo America, I totally did not expect the amount of books that I’d be able to find. While I did walk away with a lot of books, I picked up only books that I’ve heard of before the event or ones that were pitched to me by publicists specifically.

A lot of the day was still spent waiting in lines for author signings but I still had a lot of fun. I finally met Tahereh Mafi and got a copy of A Very Large Expanse of Sea. We also got to see Laini Taylor again and I picked up a copy of Muse of Nightmares for my friend. I ended up picking up quite a bit of books after walking around and talking to publicists.

We also went to the Courtney Summers signing for Sadie and while I do have a copy at home (which I will pass on to another blogger), it was nice to meet Courtney and get it personalized.

Sunday

This was the more busy day for me. I was able to finally meet Mackenzi Lee, whose book The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue, I have been hardcore hyping for forever. It was so lovely to finally meet her and she recognized me which totally made my year.

I also got to finally meet Ashley Herring Blake, author of How to Make a Wish. I’ve loved her books since her debut and I really couldn’t miss an opportunity to meet her.

I also got to chat with S.K Ali, author of Saints & Misfits, which was lovely. The Simon & Schuster staff was a bit confused when I waited in her signing line just to say hi but I really did just want to chat.

Both Octavia and I went to Justina Ireland’s signing for Dread Nation and that was awesome too.

Monday

This was definitely a more relaxed day for us. While we did still have a few opportunity to get some books, I mainly focused on meeting some authors.

It was the day of Ashley’s official signing so I first went to that. Then, I headed over to Whitney Gardner’s signing of Chaotic Good. I’ve been friends with Whitney for a while so it was lovely to meet her as well.

I didn’t take that many photos on this trip but I just had a lovely time hanging out with my roommates and finally meeting so many bookish people. Everyone at the conference was super nice and I was able to make so many friends in the signing lines. All in all, the trip was just fantastic and I definitely won’t hesitate to attend another ALA event if the opportunity came up.