I HAVE NEWS!!!

I have news to share with you! I have been sitting on this for the past few weeks, but now I have given the a-ok to talk about it! So, here we go!

I was asked by the lovely people of the South Bank Centre to moderate two YA Book Club events as part of this year's Festival of Love!

If I had more time and wasn't having a tiny panic, I would insert a gif of someone panicking. I won't as while I am very nervous over this, I am oh-so-very-excited and very honoured over doing this.

So, quick story time. Are we sitting comfortably?

Last year, I did a tiny event at South Bank Centre with Casey (from Dark Readers) and Lucy (from LucyTheReader) about blogging hosted by Andy Robb (due to UKYA Blogger Awards). And all three of these will tell you that I got quite nervous before the talk happened. But once we started, I had a blast and didn't feel nervous. It was such fun!!!

Sometimes, doing things that scare us is a good thing.

Anyway, fast forward nearly a year later, the lovely people from South Bank Centre emailed me, asking me if I wanted to moderate these two YA Book Club events. And I took my time thinking over this (only a few hours. Maybe 24 hours...) as I was going "Can I do this and do this well?"

Not sure I will do this well, but am going to try my damnedest to do this right! To discover new stories and authors, discuss topics that these stories tackle, and see how other readers react (as reading and blogging is very sole thing).

So, yes! I am doing these two events and I am excited! The first is Saturday 9th July and the second is Saturday 20th August, both at 3pm till 4pm. You can get more details at http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whatson/young-adult-book-club-97784!

BUT WAIT, I hear you type, WHAT BOOKS ARE YOU READING?!

Well... that is up to you guys. South Bank Centre will, in the next few days/weeks, tweet a poll of three titles. The title that wins will be the book to read. The second poll (for the August Book Club) will be sometime in June or July. (I've seen the list of the shortlist of books and we can talk OH SO MUCH about topics! Not saying what but OHH! We are going to get our teeth into these books and it will be delicious!). South Bank's Twitter is https://twitter.com/southbankcentre and I will retweet the poll on my Twitter/Facebook and I will be doing a lot of shouting.

Plus, if we have time in the first event, we might be able to talk about YA in general, I hope. Or blogging. If not, I will lurk outside for a while before running away and power reading next month's read!

But we shall be reading and chatting. Again, I am thrilled/honoured/terrified over this and I can not wait to get started (and again, thank you South Bank Centre for asking me).