ApollyCon 2019

Last Friday and Saturday, I went down to Washington DC with my friends Rachel & DJ to attend this year's ApollyCon! In case you don't yet know about ApollyCon, it's a four day event hosted by Jennifer L. Armentrout (and organized by Steph and Hannah) that brings together a mix of YA, NA and adult authors for a combination of panels, signings and social events. This year, we also managed to sneak in a little exploring outside of the con, which was a lot of fun too!

We took an early train down to Washington DC on Friday, arriving just in time to check in at the hotel, get freshened up and have lunch before the Titans Only signing session started that afternoon. (FYI, "Titans" is a type of pass that you can purchase in order to attend ApollyCon. You have the added benefit of an earlier signing limited to these passholders on Friday, which is definitely ideal if you want to beat the Saturday rush!) I got to catch a few of my favorite authors - Sarah J. Maas, Christina Lauren, Brigid Kemmerer, Miranda Kenneally and Lisa Maxwell - and get all my books signed, which was lovely. (Shoutout to Lizzy Mason & Anna Bright as well, who are friends and debut authors for 2019 who were in attendance too!) After getting everything we wanted done, we popped out to have dinner at Matchbox (which was so good, and I would definitely go again) and then stopped by the Berkley blogger get-together before calling it a night.

On Saturday morning, we were up early to go to Bayou Bakery for breakfast (a return visit after falling in love with the place last year). We then headed on over to the Capitol Building, where we took a whole lot of photos, before making our way to Kramerbooks to browse their selection and do a little shopping (I walked away with a copy of Good Omens!). We wanted to finish off with some coffee and dessert, and found ourselves at Dolcezza, a cozy little place that offered caffeine and gelato. 

Since we ended up having a little more time before we needed to get to the train, we popped back into the hotel again to catch the afternoon portion of ApollyCon. We ended up having a chance to chat with the lovely Tif Marcelo for a bit, and it was so wonderful to finally meet her in person after chatting with her a little bit online. We also spent some time catching up with our other pals Mitali, Estelle and Lizzy in the lobby, before we finally made our way to Union Station to catch our train.

All in all, it was another successful ApollyCon for us, and I'm glad we were able to keep the tradition going. We're definitely planning on making a trip down again in 2020 (J.R. Ward as the special guest, anyone? I. Am. Ready.)!