Amazon discontinued the ability to create images using their SiteStripe feature and in their infinite wisdom broke all previously created images on 12/31/23. Many blogs used this feature, including this one. Expect my archives to be a hot mess of broken book cover images until I can slowly comb through 20 years of archives to make corrections.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Wendy Goes Hunting For Authors

In a moment of pure insanity, yes I did it. Yes, I volunteered, for the 5th year running, to help scare up authors for my library's literary event next April. Then I proceeded to spend a fair amount of time banging my head against my desk in my wee lil' office cubicle. This year proved to be a challenge on the romance front, because I realized recently that the RT Convention, which will be in L.A. this next year, is the same weekend as my library's event. Sigh. Granted my library's wing-ding is one day (an all day affair, but we don't ask authors to "commit" beyond their panel discussion and booksigning session) - but finding authors willing to break away from RT proved to be a little tricky. But I did! I persevered! And I gotta say, I think the romance panel is gonna be all sorts of awesome. Here's who we've got lined up:


Zoe Archer, who will be talking about her new Victorian historical/adventure/fantasy series, The Blades Of The Rose. "Adventure stories" are a bit of a rare bird in the romance genre, so I'm really excited to have Zoe on our panel. Also, there's been a bit of "time off" for her between releases - and I always like to mix in some "publishing stuff" into these panels - if only to give readers the inside scoop. You'd be amazed how many people think that getting your book published = set for life! Ha!




Laura Wright, who has written a slew of books for Silhouette Desire, but has a new vampire series kicking off for Signet in October. I keep hearing from various corners that "vampires are dead" (no pun intended) - but then I see these books flying off the shelves at many libraries and think "Yeah, sure they are." And in a bit of perfect timing, the second book in this series is slated for an April release.






Judy Duarte, who I was happy to find after two other authors turned me down because of RT. And in a bit of good fortune, Judy signing on makes this panel a hugely interesting mix of books and styles. Her single titles for Kensington are in the vein of "inspirational women's fiction" and she writes "home and hearth" type books for Silhouette Special Edition.




So we have historical fantasy adventure, sexy vampires, and feel-good home and hearth. One thing is for sure, my "homework reading" for this panel shouldn't be boring! Also, it should be scads of fun to come up with discussion questions for the panelists. I've had some great panels in the past, with lots of variety, but I think I might have hit it out of the park with this one. Of course I won't know for sure until April.

In other news? We got us some kickass mystery/suspense folks as well. Christopher Reich, Paul Levine, Dianne Emley, Barbara Hambly, Jeri Westerson, just to name a few. Now all I need to figure out is what I'm going to do about RT. I'm still going to put in an appearance, just not sure when and for how many days. Because being anywhere near L.A. that Saturday is definitely out of the question now.

13 comments:

Victoria Janssen said...

Yay Barbara Hambly! She's one of my favorite authors.

Kay Bigelow said...

Sounds like an awesome lineup. Good luck with your event!

JamiSings said...

I wish I worked at your library. Our adult librarian usually just gets musician Thomas Leeb. I've even offered to sing (for free) to give some sort of variety but it's always Thomas Leeb.

He did try to get a guy to talk about ghosts last year, but the guy has cancer and got too sick to talk.

Are you doing the open house on September 29th as well?

nath said...

Ugh, don't you hate it? Schedule conflict? Well as I remember it, Saturday was light-ish in schedule during the day because the literacy signing.

Taryn Kincaid said...

Seems like a perfect opportunity for a tie-in...and yet...when you think about it...

Very generous of the authors who committed. Karma. What goes around comes around. And all that.

Looking forward to the Zoe Archer series, especially!

Zoe Archer said...

You wouldn't happen to know what time the romance panel is going to be, do you? :) I may just have to book it from OC back to LA!

Kim in Baltimore said...

I planned on attending RT, but maybe I'll break away on Saturday to hear Zoe Archer speak! Sadly, I missed her at RWA in Orlando.

Perhaps you can borrow Wonder Woman's invisible airplane to get us to both events because you are, after all, Wendy the Superlibrarian!

Rosie said...

Well that some scheduling karma right there SL... You cause a conundrum for us SoCal Bloggers. I was sort of hoping Saturday would be our get together at RT at the Literacy signing. If it's at night, maybe its all doable.

Looks like you are on a roll though. Maybe you should buy a lottery ticket...

Wendy said...

Jami: Open house?

Zoe: No clue yet, as we haven't gotten down to scheduling the panel times. I could try to shoot for morning....

Unless....

Anyone know when RT traditionally does their book signing? I'm assuming afternoon/evening - but having never attended I don't know for sure.

Rosie: We'll get it sorted out. I'm going to try to do both, and we'll see how that goes :)

Kim in Baltimore said...

Wendy, I sent you a email but will post what I know here, too. This information is based on previous conventions and I don't speak for RT. Saturday is an action packed with:

- Book fair @ 11 am - 2 pm
- SOS Military Tribute @ 4 - 5 pm
(my gig)
- Mr. Romance Contest 5 - 7 pm
- Publisher's Party 9 pm - ??

This past year, RT added "Women's Fiction Day" to attract local readers who could only attend one day. It was a success in Columbus and I believe it will return to LA.

JamiSings said...

Yeah, my supervisor said that HQ wants us to do an open house on September 29th, complete with balloons and such. I'm trying to convince them to let me sing since I work that day anyway.

Maybe not all libraries are doing it at the same time.

Wendy said...

Jami: Yeah, an e-mail came thru today and I was like, "Oooooh, so that's the Open House Jami mentioned" LOL. I'm on several of the e-mail distribution lists, but haven't really made any meetings this past month - so that one flew under my radar.....

JamiSings said...

Well, now you know. LOL

Being just a part time library clerk I often don't get e-mails until nearly too late. And on top of that there's usually SO MANY catastrophic leave requests things get buried/hidden/accidentally deleted.