RWA Put Your Heart in a Book Conference
Just got back from this conference in NJ and had a blast with Keri Mikulski, author of the sporty YA novel HEAD GAMES (Razorbill, January 2011). I woke up at 4:30am Saturday morning and headed on over to my old hometown, Edison NJ, where I snapped a picture of the house I grew up in:
The sad thing is, that tree in the front yard is about as old as I am. The window on the top right is where my bedroom was. My mother used to have pretty roses along the side of the house, but they got pulled out. I know this is interesting to nobody but me, so I will move on.
I arrived at the conference early to hear Sharon Sala speak. She was hilarious, but I have to admit to you that going to RWA is a little confusing to me because I do not read romance. I did not know anyone in the room, or what they wrote. So when the speakers for next year were announced everyone ooohed and aaaahed and I said, "wasn't she on the last season of Survivor?" because I had no idea. But the exciting thing was that BOTH KERI AND I WON BASKETS!! Though immediately Keri began eyeing mine with jealousy... I had a copy of Meg Cabot's INSATIABLE in mine, and Keri is Meg's BIGGEST FAN. I wondered if I would be murdered in my sleep at night.
Afterwards, Keri and I were both really nervous for our presentation, but we pulled through! It actually was a lot of fun bouncing things off each other... much less stressful than doing it alone! And when it was over, we were happy. This is Keri sighing with relief:
Then we went to Vegas and partied. Actually, no we didn't. We found a room that looked a lot like a Vegas club, so we hung out in it for awhile and pretended to be cool. Here is me inspecting the disco ball on the ceiling:
I mean, does this NOT look like a Vegas club? Keri loved the zebra-striped pillows and I wanted a coffee table shaped like a silver tree trunk. We contemplated smuggling them out in our luggage.
Afterwards, we had lunch. Robyn Carr (again, no clue) spoke, and she was again, wonderful. Also loved her comment about how she was such an overnight success, because it took her 30 years to land on the NYT Bestseller list. Hee.
Then we stole upstairs because we decided that we would divvy up our basket winnings. Keri knocked me over and pounced on INSATIABLE as if it held the key to understanding all life's mysteries:
I picked up some scrapbooking crap and a bunch of post-it notes:
Then I went to a couple afternoon sessions and the book signing, where there were 70 Romance Authors in ONE ROOM (I didn't know there WERE 70 romance authors!)! But here is the picture of me signing my books. I nearly sold out of FAIRY TALE, which was cool:
I also picked up something called FORBIDDEN HEAT by Opal Carew, who was signing books near me. It was my first foray into that particular genre and probably my last, because I think I had several minor heart attacks during the read (though Keri noted that despite that, I wasn't able to put it down).
Then, because we are Jersey girls, we went to the mall and ate artery-clogging food from Chick-Fil-A (we are classy) and talked about the biz. When we came back we took turns reading trashy passages from books to each other and giggling and going "ew!" Yeah, there's a reason we write for young adults.
It was a very fun weekend.