Picture Post- RWA Literacy Signing Part 2

First off, one quick link. I interviewed Alexa from Not Enough Bookshelves (who I met briefly at the Diana Peterfreund event I went to last Saturday) for BBAW. Go here to read the interview!

So when I left off in Part 1, we had just been let in to the signing area. It was a madhouse. I had no idea where I wanted to go first and how I would go about doing all this. I decided to just start with the books I'd brought with me, go through all of them, and then go through my list of books to buy. So I looked at my books after seeing that all the authors were in alphabetical order and found the first alphabetical book, which was my ARC of Ally Carter's third book in the Gallagher Girls series Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover. I actually found Ally pretty quickly, which unfortunately did not set the tone for the evening as it took me a while to find a bunch of other authors lol, and introduced myself. She remembered who I was, which was fantastic since it had been like forever since we chatted. That was back in October or November 2007 when I interviewed her and my friend Lauren reviewed Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy. We talked for a couple minutes and she was so sweet but then I moved on because I believe someone new was coming up to get something signed by her. Before heading to the next author whose book I brought, I stopped by and talked with Tera Lynn Childs a bit before someone else swooped in and asked her to sign something. After that, I moved on to Rosemary Clement-Moore, and she signed my copy of Prom Dates from Hell and we chatted for a bit since she knew who I was. If I remember correctly, she may have even given me a hug as soon as I introduced myself (or maybe that was Ally Carter...), lol. It was very fun talking with her- she is so funny and awesome.



Next up was Bewitching Season by Marissa Doyle and I went up and introduced myself and all that but like I said in the vlog, I don't think she heard me (and had this confirmed by Marissa in a comment- she was sad that she didn't realize it was me) so we didn't spend much time talking. After that, I moved on toward Julie Linker, but her table was empty save for copies of her book Crowned. I had to come back twice before she had arrived- her plane was way delayed and so she ended up being late.
Since Julie wasn't there, I decided to check Sarah MacLean, the final author in the stack of books I'd brought. I introduced myself and she came around to give me a hug, which made me happy. She signed my copy of The Season and we talked a bit, which was really fun. I visited Sarah a couple more times throughout the course of the night since I ended up getting through my list way earlier than planned, lol.

After that, I wandered off in search of my next author to stalk. Since I can't remember the exact order, I'm just gonna write down each name and say what happened with each author:

K.A. Mitchell- I was waiting in line for Trish Milburn and happened to be standing in front of K.A. Now it's an awkward situation standing in front of another author while waiting in line for someone else. So I was looking around and at one point, in my peripheral vision, I noticed that there appeared to be a shirtless man on the cover of one of K.A.'s books. On closer inspection, there appeared to be TWO shirtless men on the same book cover. As a gay man, I was intrigued by this. K.A seemed happy that she had reeled someone in with her risque covers. Anyway, she told me the merits of both novels and I chose the more mature content merit (Diving In Deep). She signed the book for me and we talked about gay romance authors being at RWA, and she pointed me toward another author who did gay romance with the same publisher as her. That author was...

Ally Blue- It took me a while to find Ally and then even more time to find an opening. She seemed to have a lot of fans! At least around the time I happened to be looking for her, lol. I finally got to her and explained that K.A. had pointed me in her direction and I looked at the back of both books that she had available and picked the one I wanted to buy (The Happy Onion). She signed it and we talked for a bit; I again brought up the fact that I had thought there wouldn't be gay romance at RWA. Turns out I was way wrong, lol. I'm happy about being wrong. :)


Jennifer Echols- Jennifer saw me as I entered her aisle and waved me down, screaming my name. It was the first time any author had done that, lol. She hugged me right away when I got to her place and we chatted away for a little while. I got a copy of Going Too Far with the awesome cover (I originally had an ARC that had no cover, which made me sad, but I gave it away so I needed a new copy) signed and grabbed a little swag that she had on the table. It was great fun to meet an author that I've been reading and emailing since I started my blog.

Tina Ferraro- I stopped by Tina's table to pick up one of her earlier books. I had ABC's already, and the other book she had with her was How to Hook a Hottie, so I got that. We talked for a couple minutes and she showed off her RITA flag (seen in the picture with her last post) to me that Jennifer Echols had made her.

Rachel Vincent- Nancy and I caught up with each other at Rachel's table and we talked while another fan finished up with her, then Nancy went first. Unfortunately, they had no copies of My Soul to Save, which I was really hoping for, so I ended up getting Prey, the fourth book in her Werecats series, despite having not read the first three books. So I need to get on that. I introduced myself to Rachel cuz we had emailed a bit before and she probably just didn't hear me cuz it was way loud, so not much talking happened. I got some AWESOME swag though- yay for Soul Screamers bookmarks! :)

Tricia Mills- After grabbing the K.A. Mitchell book, I got to Tricia's spot and acted like a complete loon while I was there in front of her. I asked if she would mind signing her book Heartbreak River for me, and she agreed and promptly signed a copy. I thanked her and wandered off. That's right, no chatting, no talking, no conversation. I. Was. A. Loon. I feel really bad about it, but we made up later while I was hanging out with Julie Linker, who introduced us. Not sure if Trish knew who I was even after that intro, but whatever, lol. She knows who I am now since I emailed her when the RWA vlogs went up.


Julie Linker- Like I said earlier, I stopped by her table twice and she was a no-show. Third time's the charm though cuz when I came by that time, she was there with her daughter and her sister Carolyn and all of them were dolled up for the occasion, especially Carolyn, who acted as pageant princess (to fit the theme of Julie's book Crowned). Julie hugged me when I came up and introduced me to her peeps and we talked for a bit, during which she made me take a plastic ring (she had brought lots) to wear. It turns out I can only wear it on my pinky, I believe, because my fingers are too fat, lol. I do still have it and love it, though my roomie saw it and thought that her niece had left a ring here while she was visiting. I had to tell her it was mine. I caught up with Julie a couple more times throughout the evening and ended up walking out with her toward the long purchasing line at the end of the night.

Lucienne Diver- OK, so here's where I REALLY acted like a crazed lunatic. Every time I passed Lucienne's row to try to get her to sign her book Vamped, someone was always there. Well, finally, there was an opening and I literally SWOOPED in and said really fast "Hi! I've been trying so hard to get to you. It seems like you always have someone here whenever I've tried to stop by! Would you mind signing this?" and thrust the book at her. To her credit, she remained calm (which is probably what you should do anyway, when faced with a crazy person) and signed the book. She handed it back to me and I believe was going to strike up a conversation and you know what I do? I say "Thank you so much!" and SWOOP. OUT. I mean, really, WHO DOES THAT?! So I apologized in the vlog, Lucienne, and I'm apologizing here. I am sorry for acting like a crazy person in front of you. I hope I didn't scar you for life.

So there you have it. My experience at RWA this year and it only took me TWO MONTHS to get it written and posted. I hope to try and do recaps much quicker and want to get the next three done by the time of Maggie Stiefvater's Ballad launch, which I am doing my best to go to. I still have to do Melissa Marr/Kelley Armstrong, Diana Peterfreund, and Kathryn Williams (I just went to this signing last night- it was a spontaneous decision). Maybe I'll have to do one a week, so look for one next week!

Pictures: 1) Me with Rosemary Clement-Moore at the signing. 2) Me with Sarah MacLean at the signing. Note my awesome pose while holding her book. 3) Me with Jennifer Echols. 4) Me with Julie Linker- I realize this is not the best photo of me, but hey, it's ok. I'm fine with it. There's bound to be a bad photo every once in a while.

Picture Post- RWA Literacy Signing Part 1

Alrighty, so almost two months later, I am FINALLY getting around to writing about RWA and it'll be in two posts. This one will deal with most everything before the literacy signing and the second will deal with the literacy signing.

The day didn't start off as early as I'd hoped. I had gotten up early because the friend I was staying with had to go to work and I just planned on checking email right quick and then heading back to sleep. Well, I made the mistake of turning on Yahoo IM and AIM and ended up chatting with people throughout most of the morning. My plan was to be at the hotel where the conference was taking place at around noon. I ended up leaving my friend's place at noon to go to the metro station near his apartment to get to the metro stop near the hotel. I got lost on the way to the metro which makes no sense since there are signs EVERYWHERE for the metro station. While on the metro itself, I texted Melissa Francis, author of Bite Me, to see if she had already headed out to lunch or anything. She replied that she and her friends were just at that time looking around for a place to eat, and would text me when they decided on where to eat. I could join them once I arrived, but the metro ride took way too long and by the time I got there, they had just finished.



Melissa introduced me to her two friends whose names I unfortunately don't remember and I feel really bad about that. We all went back to the hotel where it was nice and air-conditioned, and Melissa's friends left to go to their rooms while Melissa and I went to the bar area to chat for a bit. On our way in, I thought I saw someone who looked like Jennifer Echols, but she was on the phone so I didn't go over and say hi; I found out later that it was Jen and she had seen me too and wanted to say hi, but couldn't since she was on the phone, lol. But before we sat down, I saw what I thought was Diana Peterfreund's hair from behind, and it turns out that it was Diana! So Melissa and I went over to chat for a bit with her and that was fun, but sadly, Diana had to go after a few minutes. After that, we went back over to the lounge/bar area and found some comfy chairs to sit in; we talked about books, of course, and heroines in fiction as well as what's going on in my life and stuff about her book Bite Me. It was honestly one of the best afternoons ever. Unfortunately, Melissa had to leave and take care of a few things before the literacy signing that evening, which she wasn't signing at even though her book was just two weeks away from release. But next year, she'll have two books available to sign (I think)! But before she left, she signed my book which I showed off in a vlog that following weekend. I loved what she wrote and it was just so much fun hanging out with her for a bit.

After Melissa left, I decided to go out to lunch at McDonald's since I hadn't yet had a chance to eat and finished up reading Bite Me while I ate my meal. It was a glorious meal- everything made to perfection. Anyway, after that, I went back to the hotel and grabbed a table in the bar area to sit at while I read and waited for Tera Lynn Childs to come by. When I texted Tera about where I was in the bar area, I said "Look for the only male in a sea of women." She found me easily and gave me some swag, which was awesome, and we talked for a bit about writing (I still haven't taken her advice- sorry Tera!) and Texas, among other things. Tera got a text from Tina Ferraro that read "I am exhausted. Should I come down and chat?" (paraphrased from my horrible memory) and of course she wrote back that yes, Tina should come down, which she did! Tina is extremely awesome and hilarious, and is just amazingly hyper. Tera introduced us and then they both had to go by the Swag Room to drop off their stuff and get ready for the signing.



I went looking everywhere for Nancy and her friends who were waiting in line outside the signing area before Tera and I met up and finally found it after like 15 minutes of searching, so I went there after Tera and Tina wandered off. Her friends and I chatted about books and what we had done that day; one of them (Linda) even offered to send me her extra copy of Intertwined by Gena Showalter which I'm extremely excited to get. Now I just need to get My Soul to Take by Rachel Vincent; anyone want to send me a copy of that? No? OK, fine.

So we all chatted for a while, and then around 5:30, they handed out some things like pink bags to hold our books in, stickers to put on the books we're bringing in from home, and other things. There was this one lady near us who was leaving that night on a flight that was like two hours later and so she was like "LET ME IN! I JUST HAVE ONE BOOK TO GET SIGNED! GRAWR!!!" and generally jumping around and being annoying. But anyway, we got let in and the madness began...

Also, we got filmed being let in to the signing area. I should go find where that video footage is, lol. I found an article in the Washington Post with a picture but no video footage at any of the DC news stations. Here's a picture I took of what the inside of the signing area looked like; well, half of it, at least, lol.



So that's all for today. The next part should be up soon but first, I need to write it down, lol. That's mainly why this recap took so long. I am a very lazy, procrastinatory (is that a word?) person.

Photos: 1) Tera and me at the signing 2) Tina and me at the signing- she's holding her RITA Finalist flag that Jen Echols made for her since the real ones didn't arrive; they sat across from each other in their row and 3) View of the Literacy Signing area taken from about the mid-way point. Do you see all the people? It was PACKED.