Authors Unlimited 2018 took place on Saturday, April 28, 10 am through 3 pm at St. Joseph’s College in Patchogue. This event celebrates reading and writing by connecting teens to YA authors. Teens and tweens were able to earn community service credit by volunteering at, or even just attending the event. This year, the teens who attended AU were joined by the following YA authors: Arvin Ahmadi, Amy Giles, Eliot Schrefer, George O’Connor, Jessie Janowitz, Kara Thomas, Sarah Beth Durst, and Patty Blount.

Teens who applied and were chosen to volunteer at AU were assigned an author to help out throughout the day. Volunteers, and other teens who attended, first got to attend a 45 minute panel with all of the authors. Then, there were three smaller 45 minute breakout sessions that were available to attend. Volunteers escorted their assigned authors to and from these sessions, as well as to and from lunch. Other attendees were able to choose to go to each session or to take a lunch break whenever they wished to instead of attending all three sessions.

After the panel and breakout sessions, everyone was welcome to purchase books by the authors who attended and get them signed at the hour long book signing. This is also when attendees who weren’t volunteering were finally able to meet the authors one on one.

Did you miss out on Authors Unlimited 2018? Well, don’t be too bummed out. There’s always next year!