RWA Report and Book Giveaway

I've been back from my trip to the RWA National Conference for a week and a half, but it has taken me this long to get around to reporting on it because A) as usual, I was exhausted when I came back and B) I've been really busy.

But here, at last, is a quick report on my trip.

It was good.

Oh, sorry, you wanted a little more detail? I got in Wednesday late morning, checked in, and caught up with my roommate, the fabulous Maria V. Snyder. (I adore her books. If you haven't read them yet, go run out and catch up.) The two of us ended up going out to dinner that first night with two of my favorite peeps from the Coastal Magic convention, author extraordinaire Carrie Ann Ryan and copy editor extraordinaire and Official Woman with the Coolest Hair Chelle Olson. We went to a fun brewery restaurant and shared tastes of all the different beers made in house. Also, yummy guacamole.

Chelle, Carrie Ann, and Maria

 One of the best things about going to this particular convention is being able to meet up with people I never get to see anyplace else. I had a great lunch meeting with my agent Elaine Spencer (which I somehow completely failed to get a picture of, dammit), met the glorious Tawna Fenske in person at last

The glorious Tawna Fenske

 Had breakfast and then other meet-ups with one of my favorite people, Harlequin senior editor Patience Bloom (who has the best red hair evah and is also a sweetie of the Nth order).

Patience!

One of the reasons I decided to go this year was because one of my very favorite authors was giving the keynote speech at the luncheon. I love, love, love Susan Wiggs' books (they're an auto-buy for me) and while we follow each other on Twitter, I've never met her. She was a great speaker, and when I got to meet up with her later at the Berkley party, it was absolutely the highlight of my con. (And AGAIN, no picture! Argh!)

Susan Wiggs

At these cons, you tend to run into the same people over and over again. At this particular one, that person was the lovely and charming Susan Elizabeth Phillips. I kept swearing I wasn't stalking her, but I'm not sure she believed me. Either way, she was absolutely gracious about it.

Susan Elizabeth Phillips. And yes, that book came home with me.

At the "Cool Kids" table for the awards ceremony.

 One of the highlights of the convention is the RITA awards ceremony. I actually got to sit at the Cool Kids table between amazing author Kristan Higgins and my lovely pal Patience.

The last night, I had fun in a photo booth with Princess Alethea Kontis (who I also know from Coastal Magic--seriously, you people want to go to THAT convention) at Sherrilyn Kenyon's book release party. It is possible we got a little silly.

As always, I kept my goal to have bacon every day at the con. It's important to have goals in life, don't you think?

Dinner on the last night with roomie Maria. BBQ by the pool, yum!

Best roommate ever

 I always come home from these things with a million books. This time I swore I would limit it to ten, so I didn't have to pay to ship a big box home. Yeah. Not so much.

27 is the same as 10, right?

 Although in my defense, the three books in the middle are ones my agent brought me to read for inspiration on the current book I'm writing, and the pile on the right is for the cat sitters and some friends, and a giveaway. AND I had to mail home the rest of the swag I brought with me to give away.

 Oh, wait, did I say giveaway? I brought home a copy of Susan's last book, The Family Tree (I already have it in hardcover), plus a luggage tag with a picture of her upcoming book, A Map of the Heart. Plus, there are two tote bags! I'll probably also throw in some misc. bookmarks and such. Who wants to enter?

Goodies!

This is going to be a quickie giveaway, only on for a few days, so be sure to enter right away. Oh, and Magic the Cat would like you to know that she helped me pack.

She's never happy about me leaving, and you can tell.

Enter by filling out the Rafflecopter form. You get credit for anything you've already done, like following me on Twitter. (You've already done that, RIGHT?)

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Next up, a blog about my visit to Animal Adventure Park to see April the giraffe!

Heading to RWA Nationals

I am leaving on Tuesday afternoon for one of the largest writing conferences in the world, the RWA (Romance Writers of America) National conference, being held this year in Orlando, Florida. The location changes, although every four years or so it heads to NYC, since that is publishing central. I usually go to that one because I can get there by bus (5 1/2 hours!) but Orlando is close enough to manage, and it is the only place I get to meet up with my agent Elaine Spencer in person, so I decided to go this year even if it meant flying.

I'm going to be sharing a room with the lovely Maria V. Snyder, who is not only an incredible author whose work I adore and admire, but a very cool person to boot. So yay for that! I'm also going to get a chance to meet up with a bunch of author friends who I never get to see otherwise, do some networking, and take a few workshops that might help with some of the new directions my writing is heading in.

Thankfully, I have an amazing cat sitter coming to take care of Mystic, Magic, and Angus--she used to work at a vet's office, so I know that Mystic (who is doing quite well) will be in good hands. It makes it a lot easier to go than it would be otherwise. Thanks, Alicia!

On Saturday, there will be a Literacy Signing from 3-5PM. It is open to the public and the proceeds all go to benefit literacy (and there will be hundreds of great authors there, some of them WAY more famous than I am). I hope if you are local, you'll stop in and say hello.

Here are a few pictures from past conferences--I'll post an update with new ones when I get home. Are any of you going to be there?

Me and Maria in 2015

The lovely Patience Bloom--I can't wait to see her this year!

At the book signing in 2015

With favorite author Jennifer Crusie

Let me know if you're going to be there!

Looking Back at 2015

First off, can someone explain to me how it is the end of 2015? Seriously. What the heck happened to this year? Oh, wait, this happened...

WRITING
This was an insane year for the writing--probably the busiest I have ever had.

1. I wrote the book for the fabulous Llewellyn Tarot Deck I'm doing with illustrator Elisabeth Alba. 
2. I signed the second contract with Berkley for the next two books in the Baba Yaga series, a novella, plus Veiled Magic, the urban fantasy I'd written a few years ago.  
3. Everyday Witchcraft came out from Llewellyn in April (and is still #4 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > New Age & Spirituality > Wicca, Witchcraft & Paganism on Amazon!) followed by the Midsummer book in May. 
4. Witches & Pagans Magazine  put out an edition (#29) with me on the cover
5. Veiled Magic came out in mid-November. 
6. In the midst of all that, I was doing major revisions on Veiled Magic, writing and revising the third Baba Yaga book WICKEDLY POWERFUL and the novella Wickedly Ever After (both of which are up for pre-order, she said with a wink) and writing the first Rider book, Dangerously Charming. [More on that in another blog post, because OY.] 
7. Plus, of course, there was promo and giveaways and all that for all the books I had out already. Plus my column for Witches & Pagans, and a few misc. articles for Llewellyn.
8. Then in December, I signed a contract with Llewellyn for one more book, tentatively called "365 Days of Everyday Witchcraft." 

This was 2015!

So a good year, but INSANE. Hopefully 2016 will be a tad bit calmer.

Yeah, sure. That could happen.

TRAVEL
Then there was the traveling. I rarely travel much, in part because the cats don't like it, in part because frankly, I am a lousy traveler, and in part because I don't have the time or money. None of that seemed to stop me this year. This is where I went:

1. February--San Diego to visit my family and then on to San Jose for Pantheacon, one of my favorite Pagan conferences, where I got to hang out with my step-daughter Jenn, my beloved Llewellyn editor Elysia and publisher Bill, as well as lots of other cool folks.
2. July--New York City for the Romance Writers of America National conference. There I met up with my editor, my agents, lots of writing friends, participated in a panel, and hatched some interesting plans with Mindy Klasky. (Plus I finally got to meet the lovely Patience Bloom in person, which was a huge treat, and go to two panels by author Jennifer Crusie, who knows more about writing than anyone else I have ever met.)
3. August--Eight days after I returned from NYC, I took off for Boston to join my extended family for a long-overdue family reunion vacation in Cape Cod for nine days. The highlight of that was getting to spend time with my cousin Peter and his wife and two amazing boys, who I hadn't seen in years (or in the youngest boy's case, ever). Also, you know, BEACH.
4. September--I spent two days in Binghamton at an up-and-coming local SF/fantasy con, Robercon, with my pal Ellen. The best part of that one was meeting and hanging out with the shockingly talented and equally nice guest of honor, Tamora Pierce, who I have adored for years. We were online pals for ages, but now that we've met in person, we're best friends. (Okay, she probably doesn't realize that, but really, we are.)
5. November--Author pal Nancy Holzner and I headed to Saratoga Springs for World Fantasy Con, where I got to spend lots of time with author friends old and new, including the fabulous Carol Berg and Lucienne Diver.

To say that I am happy to be done with traveling for the year would be a huge understatement, although I am heading back out in February for four days in Daytona Beach for Coastal Magic.

The beach in San Diego. In February.

Me and Elysia

With Jenny Crusie

Alex, Mariana, Misho, Peter and me on the Cape

Nancy, me, Tamora, Crystal S at Robercon

Esther Friesner, Lucienne Diver, me, and Carol Berg plotting world domination

Personal Stuff
In between all this, I was dealing with my step-daughter Jenn's mom Jo (also a friend of mine) who had a massive heart attack in March and then another smaller one in early November. This has meant a lot more visits from Jenn, mostly to see her mom, and adding care-taking to my list of things to do, now that Jo is in a nursing home (since Jenn lives across the country and can't do handle most things from there). But we had a lovely Christmas together with our friend Ellen this year, so that was nice. (Ellen gave us all imaginary perfect gifts...that's what we're holding up.)

Me, Jo, Jenn on Christmas morning

Plus, of course, CATS:

Angus & Mystic

Luna

Minerva & Mystic

Magic the Cat, Queen of the Universe

 And running The Artisans Guild and making jewelry, and doing all manner of work on my house...so pretty much, life. But a good one.

I hope that you had a great 2015. I'd love to hear what the highlight of your year was. I think mine was meeting Tamora Pierce. What was yours?

Thanks for spending this year with me, and I look forward to sharing 2016 with you--may it be filled with health, prosperity, achievement, joy, love, and at least a little magic!

At RWA 2015 in NYC

I'm sorry I haven't been around much, but I have a good excuse. First I was madly prepping to go to the Romance Writers of America (RWA) National Convention. This means writing like a crazy person to make up for the fact that I was going to lose five days of writing time (I normally write almost every day). And trying to figure out what the heck to wear, and then packing, and then (gulp) five and half hours on the bus to NYC.

Then, of course, I was actually AT the convention, and too busy to do much more than occasionally post a picture of my breakfasts on Facebook. (No, really, they were very good breakfasts. Lots of bacon.)

There are a number of reasons I go to the Nationals every few years. There are good workshops, and it is a great opportunity for networking. For me, though, the best part is the people I get to see that I don't have the opportunity to meet up with anywhere else. This was my third time attending, and in many ways it was very different from previous conventions. The first one I went to, in Washington, DC, I was just starting out in the fiction field, still looking for an agent. The second one, four years ago in NYC, I had my agent (the wonderful Elaine Spencer), but we hadn't sold a book yet. This year was my first time attending as a published author. This meant I got to take part in both the Literacy Signing Wednesday night (an insane mob scene also open to the public) and the Berkley signing on Friday for conference-goers only.

At the Literacy Signing

I love having piles of my books! And they all disappeared in the first hour!

Of course, it was a crazy hectic manic rush from the minute I got there. But I did get to see agent/author pal Lucienne Diver after the signing on Wednesday, where she convinced me to go to the Coastal Magic convention next February in Florida.

On Thursday, I had breakfast with some Betty friends, including roommate Megan Coakley. If you're a Betty, raise your hand in the comments :-)

Stephanie, Karen (who wasn't even at the convention and just drove in to see the rest of us), and Megan

 Then I had lunch with Elaine and we took part in a panel that featured agents and authors from The Knight Agency...and didn't manage to remember to get a picture of either. Sigh.

Hung out with brilliant author pal Mindy Klasky and hatched some possible plans...

Mindy!

 And then the highlight of my trip, finally meeting my amazing Berkley editor, Leis Pederson. We had such a great time together! (It's a funny looking picture because we convinced the security guard at the desk to take it.)

Me and Leis Pederson

She took me to a yummy Mediterranean restaurant called Kellari Taverna and we shared a bunch of appetizers including lamb riblets, and the most delicious flaming cheese. No, really. They soaked it in something like brandy and set it on fire. It was delish!

That's the cheese in the cast iron pan, no longer flaming.

On Friday, I got to go to two different workshops given by my favorite author, Jennifer Crusie. Jenny is not only a terrific author, she is a great teacher, and I credit her "Turning Points" workshop (that I went to at my first RWA, and then again this time) with improving my writing to the point where I finally got an agent. I started a standing tradition at that first Nationals of stalking her throughout the conference and giving her chocolate. (If you're going to stalk someone, you should at least make it worth her while.) This time I brought her handcrafted chocolates made by a local chocolatier. Yum.

The stupendous, amazing, inspirational Jennifer Crusie

Megan, Jenny, Stephanie and me

I also got to finally meet the lovely Patience Bloom, who is both an editor for Harlequin and the author of a funny, sweet, and poignant memoir called Romance is My Day Job (all about her real life love story), which I recently read and loved.

Patience Bloom, who made me wish I had red hair

 And of course, there was New York City. I'm not a city girl, myself, but you have to admit it is pretty splendid.

Bryant Park, where people were watching Shakespeare in the Park

I had a lot of fun, ate some wonderful food, and met up with a whole bunch of terrific people. But I was still really glad to get home to the kitties and you people.

I suspect we'll celebrate with a giveaway sometime this week. Just because.

Where is the last interesting place you traveled to? Are you a journeyer or a homebody like me?