Maggie Stiefvater offers advice.

This past week and weekend, the Third Annual Teen Author Festival took place in New York City. Some of your favorite YA writers descended on the Big Apple to speak on panels and visit local schools, libraries, and bookstores. On Friday, the folks at Scholastic were treated to a morning reading at our office, where 11 awesome authors each shared two minutes from their most recent work. As a bonus, we even got to hear excerpts from some stuff that isn’t even out yet! Sarah Darer Littman read from her book Want to Go Private? (which comes out in August!) and debut author Jeff Hirsch shared a passage from The Eleventh Plague, which will be out in September. Everyone in attendance was sworn to secrecy!

Afterward, everyone moved over to The Scholastic Store where we were joined by even more authors to sign some books and to chat with us! In honor of our “Read Every Day. Lead A Better Life.” campaign, we asked each visiting author to finish the prompt, “Read Every Day To…”

As you might expect, they gave us a variety of answers – from funny, to inspirational, to witty! Check it out:

[In order, the authors pictured are: Maggie Stiefvater, Libba Bray, E. Archer, Judy Blundell, Michael Northrop, Sarah Darer Littman, Elizabeth Eulberg, Kim Harrington, Eireann Corrigan, Barry Lyga, Alexandra Bullen, Samantha Schutz, Lisa Ann Sandell, Patrick Ryan, Natalie Standiford, Matthue Roth. Thanks to all of them for participating!]

Tell us what you think, OOM readers! Why should we all Read Every Day?

– Lauren Felsenstein