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Scranton | Life > Experiences

Attending BookCon after a six-year hiatus 

Nya Rowe Student Contributor, University of Scranton
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Scranton chapter and does not reflect the views of Her Campus.

Can you imagine anything better than a convention simply for books? A place where book lovers gather to trade trinkets, swap books, peruse author panels, and simply be around other book lovers – this is all that BookCon is meant to be and more. After six years of no BookCon, you can imagine my excitement when I began seeing social media posts promoting the event set to take place over two days, April 18th and 19th. My mom and I had both bought tickets for April 18th, which totaled to about 155 dollars.  

I like to have no expectations going into these sorts of events. I prefer to run strictly on vibes. I had two panels to look forward to – one on Heated Rivalry and one on Horror as a Genre. So, besides these two panels, I had nothing else planned but to peruse and take in the entirety of the convention. Diving in, I will share my favorite parts of attending BookCon 2026. 

  1. Receiving Advanced Reader Copies (ARCs) 
  1. Something to look forward to when attending a book convention is, of course, free books! I did not receive enough books to fill my shelf, but I am so happy to receive arcs of books I’m looking forward to diving into. I received an arc of Saturn Returning by Kim Narby. Narby even signed my book. I’m excited for the end of the semester, when I will have the chance to settle down with Saturn Returning. 
  1. Taking photos  
  1. BookCon had the cutest photo ops – from book arches, greenery, and even cutouts of Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov (I love them both!!). I wasn’t going to miss the chance to wear my ‘Hot Girls Read Books’ shirt and have pictures taken. My mom and I ended up taking a lot of photos to remember the day by. 
  1. Buying merch & trinkets 
  1. I love bookish apparel, and my main goal for BookCon was to purchase something that would indicate to others that I loved to spend my time reading. Silly, I know, but I would love for someone to come up to me because they noticed my shirt and talked to me about books. This was also another way to support small businesses and talk to the people who created the art I was buying. In the end, I left with the cutest shirt with the words ‘coffee and books’ on it, stickers, bookmarks, a claw clip, and a bookworm fidget clicker. 

All in all, I had such a great time despite feeling overstimulated. I’m excited to see what BookCon 2027 has in store! 

Nya Rowe

Scranton '26

Hey, I’m Nya! I’m a senior majoring in English with minors in Writing and Social Media. I love sharing my experiences through writing and hope they resonate with whoever’s reading—just so you know you’re not alone. In my free time, I’m probably reading (and yes, I’m obsessed with my e-reader).