RWA Round-Up

Once upon a time, when Wendy would attend RWA conferences she would blog every day - sometimes staying up until 2AM to get posts written. I ran on caffeine, very little sleep, and there were blog posts. However now I am old and choose to stay up until post-midnight having a grand ol' time with romance peeps and hence, no blogging. Or pictures.  I'm crap for taking photos.  Sorry about that folks.  Anyway, so how has RWA been this year?  Mostly good. I don't think this is the best conference I've ever attended (hard to top winning Librarian of the Year in 2011!), and while I've had nothing but positive interactions this year, the vibe seems a little off. But more on that in a moment.

My conference starts a day earlier than everybody else because Wednesday means Librarians Day. The photo is the giant pile of books that was at all of our seats before the day started - and that was before they opened up the Librarians Only Goody Room (MORE STUFF!).  I presented a panel with author Laura Florand on librarian/author partnerships and how we can work together.  Laura designed this presentation with Jennifer Lohmann (author and former Librarian of the Year 2010) but sadly Jennifer couldn't make the trip this year.  So Wendy was sent in to pinch-hit.  Luckily I had seen them give this presentation before, so I had a good feel for it already, and people seemed to like it, so go Team Laura, Wendy & Jennifer!

The Literacy Signing on Wednesday night was a madhouse - which I was prepared for.  Having been at RWA in NYC the last time it was here (2011), I remembered how cramped the ballroom was.  I will say it was well organized though.  They had us "wait in line" in a separate ballroom, where there WERE CHAIRS (!) where we could SIT DOWN (!) instead of standing in line for eternity.  Do that again next year will you RWA?  Sometimes you're standing in line forever and you're exhausted before they even open the doors.  Not so this year.

I spent most of Thursday going to various publisher sponsored booksignings and talking to authors. I also attended part of Barbara Freethy's keynote speech before I had to hussle out of there for a 9AM appointment.  Honestly, I can't remember what else I did now until the evening hours, when I had a couple of invites to cocktail parties.  Since I write for Heroes & Heartbreakers (a Macmillan Publishing entity), I made my way to St. Martin's party where I ran into Megan Frampton and KM Jackson.  Then, while waiting for my bartender to pour me the biggest glass of chardonnay I've seen in my life (I could have gone swimming in it), I saw Jamie Brenner AKA Logan Belle.  I've reviewed a lot of her books (Now or Never is the gold star winner) and she was so happy to see me, and so gracious - well it was a nice ego boost.  I discovered her work when I was at RWA in 2011 and got one of her books at a Kensington booksigning, so I feel like we've come full circle together.

After St. Martin's I made my way to the Avon party, where I hung out with the gals from All About Romance, had a nice chat with this year's Librarian of the Year and ran into Sarah from Smart Bitches.  I never see Sarah at these conferences - she's always busy doing her thing and I'm busy doing mine - so it was nice to chat with her.  I closed down the Avon party, having WAY too much fun, then came back to the hotel to gossip with Rosie and LB Gregg.  Kristie was the only sensible one of us - as she was already asleep.

Friday. Oh, Friday. Did I mention I had fun at the Avon party?  I didn't get a ton of sleep, so my butt was kind of dragging.  I went to breakfast and listened to Julia Quinn's keynote that I'm still processing.  I haven't had the chance to read any chatter about it outside of Twitter, but my reaction was mixed.  I can't exactly pinpoint why it irritated me at times, but it did.  Basically it was about not being able to please all of the people all of the time, crazy-ass reader mail, and then heartbreaking, emotionally soul-lifting reader mail.  Someone smarter than me needs to write about it. Jessica, this would be your queue.

I attended a panel that LB Gregg was sitting on - about conflict in LGBTQ romance and hit most of the publisher signings.  Then for dinner, Rosie, LB and I went to Bareburger, a crunchy granola sort of burger joint and OMG, was that ever yummy!  We got back in time for LB to get herself all fancy for the Harlequin party, and the rest of us ended up hitting the bar. Hilcia came in for the evening - and a huge group of us ended up closing down the bar.  So much for Wendy catching up on her sleep.

This morning my alarm went off and I knew it wasn't happening.  So I skipped breakfast and the Nalini Singh keynote to get some more rest.  I shipped the last of my boxes of books back to the office (I got so many books for work - So. Many.) and Rosie, Kristie and I had a nice lunch.  Now it's rest time until a 4PM appointment and getting ready for the RITA ceremony.

As for the vibe at this year's conference?  It seems off to me. I don't think it's because people are mean girls or jerks - I just think everybody is tired, possibly feeling discouraged. Some conferences feel so uplifting and positive, and this year people just look tired to me. Maybe that's because I'm tired? Maybe it's the chatter I'm hearing from authors who feel overwhelmed?  This new model of having to publish 39 books a year in order be "a success."  The drive that if you don't have something new out there every month readers will "forget" you and move on?  But again, this is just MY perception.  Other authors, other bloggers may be getting a totally different vibe.  I will say that the conference has been a positive experience (it usually is for me). I don't want anyone to read this blog post and think otherwise. Hey, it could be I'm just projecting (because I'm tired!) - but I don't think so.  Which means I hope the takeaway from this RWA conference is be good to yourself, take care of you.  Readers who will forget you in 2 weeks if you don't have something new out aren't necessarily readers you want (easy for me to say, but there you have it).

I've also gotten some nice, encouraging comments about this blog from several people. Folks who lurk and don't necessarily comment.  I want to say that I appreciate those encouraging words more than you know. This hasn't been the easiest year for me, blogging-wise. I do think there is room out here for quirky, goofy little individual blogs like mine, but it's really easy to lose sight of that in the wake of Big Blogs and Promo, Promo, Promo. Blogging is different from what it was when I started doing this a billion years ago (OK, 12), but there's still value in being out here on the fringes.  Which means like romance heroines being heroes of their own stories?  I guess Wendy is the hero of her own blog.

The Calm Before The Storm

Yesterday was my one free day before I hit the conference running.  The last time RWA was in New York, I did all the stuff I really wanted to do then, so this year I'm feeling much more leisurely.  I decided to go to The Morgan Library and Museum after AnimeJune blogged about it and had a nice visit.  They currently have an Alice in Wonderland exhibit, but I'll be honest.  I was mostly there to see some JP Morgan's private collection, library and study.  It didn't disappoint. It almost makes me want to consider a career on Wall Street - except, you know, I'm not ruthless.

After that I met up with my former college roommate who has lived in the City for over a decade now (I'm not sure when we got old, but it happened).  She caught me up on the lives of mutual former drinking buddies friends and I gorged myself on sushi.  As you do.

I made it back to the hotel by mid-afternoon just in time for the arrival of KristieJ!  We talked books, and gossiped (as you do) and then I had to make my way downstairs to meet up with author Laura Florand, who is my partner for today's Librarians Day presentation.  By that point Kristie was getting hungry and hey, Wendy can always eat - so off to the bar.  Rosie, who had gone to a taping of The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon with Nath and Ames was back by this point, and along with World Famous Author, LB Gregg joined us.  Nath and Ames arrived, and eventually Limecello arrived to regal us with her travel day (short versions: long and not good).

All of this adds up to Wendy staying up way too late and now here it is 7AM and I'm blogging.  When I need to be downstairs in roughly 30 minutes for Librarians Day sign-in.  As you do.  Which reminds me it's time for my annual RWA blogging disclaimer - links, spelling, grammar are all a crap-shoot this week folks.  I know those things are normally pretty dicey around here even without RWA going on, but just roll with it, OK?

Travel, And Finding The Bar Bash Tribe

So I'm typing this from New York City where the humidity is somewhere around 350% (true story). My travel day was fairly uneventful except for flying with The Stinky Musician Hippy Twins.  OK, so they weren't twins.  But they were musicians, one of whom I overhead say he was approaching 40-years-old.  Which means way too old for them to be Stinky.  As in stale body odor stinky.  As in, we rolled out of bed and didn't bother to at least sponge themselves off stinky.  So that was fun.  Luckily they weren't sitting next to me, but one row back - which meant I was only assailed with odor during boarding and unboarding.  And go me - I got two books read in flight!  Wahooey!  Reviews will have to wait until post-RWA because no way they're getting done while I'm here.

Tomorrow I plan on meeting a college friend for lunch and then it's back to the hotel to start catching up with The Tribe.  Speaking of The Tribe - for those of you hoping to swing by the hotel bar after the Literacy Signing - the bar is on the 8th floor near hotel registration.  Look for me - wearing this scarf (look, martini glasses!).  I'll also be rocking black slacks and a gray Oxford shirt with the sleeve rolled up to my elbows.  And, you know, I'll have my name badge on.  Hope to see a bunch of you there!

RWA Bar Bash, Book Binge And Binging On Books

The reason the blog has been a dead zone is because I spent most of last week traveling.  First, visiting my sister, then spending time in San Francisco for the ALA conference (more on that in a bit).  It also kicked off what is promising to be a very busy summer for me.  Next up?  RWA.

This year's Romance Writers of America conference is heading back to New York City.  The first time since 2011, also affectionately known as Wendy's Librarian of the Year year (and no, I never get tired of pimping out that award even though it's been four years.  I earned it folks. I'll be tooting that horn until I'm dead.  And even then I might come back as a ghost and toot some more.)

I'm a terrible hostess, but do think it's nice to set aside a time for a bunch of us who kick around online together to meet up at the conference.  So if you've got nothing going on after the big Literacy Signing on Wednesday, July 22 - stop by the conference hotel bar to have some drinks and laughs. 

I'll be kicking around the entire conference, including speaking at Librarians Day (again) - so if you see me, come on up and say howdy.  I'll teach you the secret librarian handshake. 

Even if you can't attend the entire conference, if you're in the area please DO attend the Literacy Signing.  It's awesome, open to the general public, is free of charge, and the only cost to you is any books you buy at the event.

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While I was away on my travels, I had a guest post go live over at Book Binge.  I'm featured in their awesome Five Books Everyone Should Read feature.  Go on over.  See me pimp out books.

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Speaking of books, by sheer dumb luck I seem to have had a couple of highly touted new releases fall in my lap.  You know, on top of the giant pile of ARCs already living on my Kindle.  Long-time readers of this blog already know that I don't read a ton of bestselling romance.  I lap up categories.  I devour midlist historicals.  I'm reading erotic romance written by people not named EL James.  But there are two releases coming up that even I, Wendy who ignores most bestsellers outside of work, am curious about.

Lord help me, the first is The Bourbon Kings by J.R. Ward.  I read exactly one Black Dagger Brotherhood book (the second one) and while I saw the attraction for other readers, it wasn't for me.  Mostly because of the insipid dialogue (you feel me?) and heroines (all the complexity of wet dish rags).  Plus I'm not a huge paranormal reader, so it was easy for me to move on.  But this series?  It sounds like Dallas and Dynasty got together and had a baby.  I am, without a doubt, an unrepentant sucker for soap operas.  The trashier, the better.  I put myself on the waiting list at work, but shot for the moon asking for a copy via NetGalley - which Penguin actually approved for me. So I have to try this.  We'll see how far I get.  Will I DNF or finish it?  Will Ward's writing ticks drive me insane?  Only time will tell.

Next up is Cold-Hearted Rake by Lisa Kleypas.  Now I'm not a huge squee'ing Kleypas fan girl.  I've liked some of her books. But she's been away from historicals for five years.  If you look at the genre in the past couple of decades (at least) - when a historical romance author goes contemporary, they rarely come back.  Kleypas is coming back (although yes, she's obviously still working on her contemporaries).  So naturally I cannot help but be curious, but figured that with all the anticipation that Avon would probably have a tighter rein on advanced copies.  So imagine my shock (literally, shock) when while wandering around ALA last weekend I saw a giant pile of Kleypas ARCs at the Harpercollins booth.

A giant pile.

And yes, I realize this is a horrible tease - but unlike some conference attendees, I try not to be an ass.  I took three.  And I felt like an ass taking the three.  One for a librarian at the conference stuck in a workshop, one for me, and one for KristieJ.  Because I could NOT not get one for Kristie.  Look up Squee'ing Kleypas FanGirl in the romance dictionary and there's Kristie.  It was my civic duty.  Plus, you know, she's my RWA roommate.  If I didn't get her an ARC she would have probably smothered me with a pillow.

So yeah.  Sorry to be a tease everybody else.  But thank you to Harpercollins for being nice to romance reading librarians.  Because really, it was a lovely surprise to see those ARCs.

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I'm slowly beginning to get my reading mojo back (thank you Charlotte Stein - review to follow), which is a good thing since I have a ton of books waiting for me.  Westerns, Harlequin Historicals, the above mentioned Ward and Kleypas.  Lots to read, little time to actually do it.  Story of my life.