On Oct. 8, the first YABBA Festival will be held in Warrenton. YABBA stands for Young Adult Books, Bands and Authors, and it’s a free event that will feature local author signings and panel discussions, performances from local bands and writing workshops.
Throughout the day, workshops and panels featuring Northern Virginian authors will address the profession of writing, creativity, dyslexia and literacy. There will also be book signings at the end of the festival featuring local writers Eleanor Herman, Jodi Meadows, Lindsay Smith, Kath MacMillan and Jan Gangsei; food trucks like the SOBO Food Truck and The Rambler; and live music.
The festival arrives in conjunction with National Dyslexia Awareness Month, and the keynote speaker, Canadian young adult author Adam Dreece, known for his Yellow Hoods series, was diagnosed with dyslexia as a senior in high school and will speak about his experiences.
“I found out ways to adapt, even if I wrote kind of garbled words,” Dreece says. “I came to accept that, hey, I could either look at those as barriers or I can just look at those as potholes, and I’m just going to drive over those potholes.”
The festival is sponsored by Allegro, a nonprofit bolsters arts education in NoVA. Lachelle Yoder, the administrator for Allegro and head festival organizer, was motivated to launch the event due to her personal love of books with additional inspiration from South Carolina’s YALLFest.
“One of the things we really try and [ask] is, ‘What can we give back to our community? What can we offer?’ So this is one of the events we’re doing to [answer] that because that’s important to us,” Yoder says.
The first YABBA Festival is Saturday, Oct. 8, on Main Street in Warrenton, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
