RoberCon with Faith Hunter

One of the best things about being an author (besides writing books, of course) is being able to meet and get to know some of the other authors I like and admire. Many of these folks are people I follow online and become friends with, so it is a great joy when I finally get to meet one of them in person.

My "local" SF/fantasy convention, RoberCon, held every year in the Roberson Museum in Binghamton, NY (a little over an hour from where I live) has done an amazing job the last few years of moving this dream forward, by inviting as Guests of Honor a number of the folks on my "Want to Meet" list. Two years ago it was the amazing Tamora Pierce, last year it was longtime pal Alex Bledsoe, and last weekend it was the fabulous Faith Hunter.

Faith and I had been online friends for years, and I always thought she seemed very nice, but she is even more lovely in person (and her husband Rod is a hoot). As always, my best friend Ellen came along as my driver/tote-r of heavy bags of books. One of these days I am going to get her a badge that says "entourage." We had a great time, I also got to see the lovely Nancy Holzner, the astonishing con chair Crystal Sarakas, who somehow pulled this all together, and a bunch of other lovely folks. I also sat on a number of fun panels (including one on dragons!), met up with my friends Robin and George and their kids Sophie and Nate for a couple of hours on Sunday, and went out to a delicious dinner at the always fab Remlik's restaurant.

I can't share my food with you, but here, have a few pictures from the weekend.

Saturday's book signing

The dragon panel. Yes, I AM wearing a dragon hat.

At Remlik's for dinner. They gave us our own room :-)

Laughing it up with Nancy Holzner and Faith Hunter

 There are lots more pictures on Facebook, but this last one should give you some idea of how much fun we had together. I hope I'll see you (and someone else on my list) there next year!