On July 18, 2020, I joined 25 other authors at INFUSION-YA Book Festival in an exciting day-long virtual literary festival.
INFUSION-YA Book Festival is a book festival dedicated to lovers of young adult literature. As a new author with a self-published work and someone who writes literary fiction with a young protagonist, the invitation to join this literary festival was special and exciting.
2020 was the second year for INFUSION-YA, and though the plans for an in-person event was not possible due to the COVID-19 global pandemic, the organizing team decided to move the festival onto a virtual platform via Zoom.
The first panel I attended was titled “How Does One Do?” along with authors, Raelynn Davennor, Tanya Lisle, Kim Mann, Frances White from the UK, and calligrapher Dina Lu. We talked about the process of creativity, and I got to answer questions about my writing process.
The second panel was titled “Who Dunnit” with ten other authors, including Sabina Khan, Tanya Boteju, and Tash McAdam. We explored questions about the publishing industry on both self-publishing and traditional publishing. We also talked about our personal experiences in the industry and what it meant for those of us who identified as queer or authors of color, to be writing our stories.
Thank you, INFUSION-YA, for inviting me to part of this extraordinary literary festival. You can watch recordings of all panels on the INFUSION-YA Youtube channel.