I was totally flummoxed and very very happy when Darkest Part of the Forest received the Indies’ Choice Book Award for Young Adult Book of the Year. Thursday, I went to BEA to accept it.

I was supposed to go on stage and speak for two minutes.

A very intimidating two minutes!

But an incredible honor.

I was happy to get to spend some time with my editor, the incomparable Alvina Ling, and talk about some exciting things that I cannot yet reveal. I am in possession of SEVERAL SECRETS.

I completely forgot to take any photographs all day, so these are all stolen from my editor, from Hannah at Odyssey Books, and from whoever finally took the photo of all of us below, maybe it with Margie’s phone? I am not sure. All I know is that none of these photos belong to me and also that I had a whirlwind of a great time at BEA this year.

The best part (other than the award) was getting to see people that I don’t always get to see: sleeping over at Robin Wasserman’s house, getting to eat Pinkberry with Carrie Ryan, talking about writing processes with Marie Lu, hugging Gwenda Bond before being driven out of her giant signing line, and hanging out for a much too short time with Leigh Bardugo. Margie Stohl let us crash her dinner — and even gave me the food off her plate!

(Pictured here: Marie Lu, Leigh Bardugo, Alex London, me, Margie Stohl, Aaron Hartzler, and Carrie Ryan.)

I also got to see some Copper Gauntlet (Magisterium 2) ARCs in the wild!