YALLFest Red Carpet Preview

Main Library Teen Lounge - YALLFest authors walk the red carpet and then gather for a panel discussion at this annual kickoff event. Participating authors include Danielle Paige, Ally Condie, Brendan Reichs, Julie Dao, Charlotte Davis, and Tochi Onyebuchi.

Take a look at the schedule for this year's festival.

Meet The Red Carpet Panelists

Ally Condie

Ally Condie is the author of the #1 New York Times Bestselling MATCHED trilogy and of the middle-grade novel SUMMERLOST, an Edgar Award finalist for best juvenile mystery. She and Brendan Reichs are the co-authors of the new middle-grade novel THE DARKDEEP. A former English teacher, Ally is the founder and director of the non-profit WriteOut Foundation, and lives in Utah with her family.

Brendan Reichs

Brendan Reichs was born and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina and holds degrees from Wake Forest University and The George Washington University School of Law. After three long years working as a litigation attorney, he abandoned the trade to write full time. He is the author of the instant New York Times bestseller Nemesis and its sequels Genesis and Chrysalis (forthcoming), co-author of the hotly anticipated middle grade series The Darkdeep, with Ally Condie, and co-author of the six-volume New York Times and international bestselling Virals series (Virals, Seizure, Code, Exposure, Terminal, Trace Evidence). Brendan sits on the Executive Board for both YALLFEST and YALLWEST literary festivals and has received a MFA in Creative Writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. He lives in Charlotte with his wife, son, daughter, and a herd of animals that tear up everything.

Danielle Paige

Danielle Paige is the New York Times bestselling author of the Dorothy Must Die series, Stealing Snow, and  Mera: Tidebreaker with DC Entertainment. In addition to writing young adult books, she works in the television industry, where she’s received a Writers Guild of America Award and was nominated for several Daytime Emmys. She is a graduate of Columbia University and currently lives in New York City.

Julie C. Dao

Julie C. Dao is a proud Vietnamese-American who was born in upstate New York. She studied medicine in college, but came to realize blood and needles were her Kryptonite. By day, she worked in science news and research; by night, she wrote books about heroines unafraid to fight for their dreams, which inspired her to follow her passion of becoming a published author. She is the author of Forest of a Thousand Lanterns and Kingdom of the Blazing Phoenix. Julie lives in New England. Follow her on Twitter @jules_writes.

Charlotte Davis

Charlotte Nicole Davis is the author of The Good Luck Girls, a young adult fantasy novel releasing in Fall 2019 with Tor Teen. A graduate of The New School’s Writing for Children MFA program, Charlotte loves comic book movies and books with maps in the front. She currently lives in Brooklyn with a cat with a crooked tail.

Tochi Onyebuchi

Tochi Onyebuchi is the author of Beasts Made of Night, its sequel Crown of Thunder, and the upcoming War Girls, forthcoming from Razorbill in Oct. 2019. He has graduated from Yale University, New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Columbia Law School, and L’institut d’études politiques with a Masters degree in Global Business Law.

Born in Massachusetts and raised in Connecticut, Tochi is a consummate New Englander, preferring the way the tree leaves turn the color of fire on I-84 to mosquitoes and being able to boil eggs on pavement. He has worked in criminal justice, the tech industry, and immigration law, and prays every day for a new album from System of a Down.