Let's get this out of the way up front - no, I didn't take pictures. Yeah, yeah - I suck. We all know this, so there's no need to dwell on it. Also, I didn't take copious notes during the day. So instead I'm just going to give you the quick hit, bullet-point highlights.
- For an inaugural event, I think it went well. The room we were in at the hotel was pretty much full. My table did have one empty seat, but turn out looked good. Check-in got a little bogged down at times, but it ran fairly smoothly in my experience, as did the book selling and autograph signings.
- M.G. Lord, an academic and non-fiction writer, served as moderator. She was funny, interesting, and didn't "talk down" to her audience. I know there are a number of academics who don't sneer at genre readers, but honestly - y'all are still a minority. Just sayin'.
- Gail Carriger is a tea drinker. I am also a tea drinker so this made me happy. However she lost me when she practically started foaming at the mouth over her loathing of Earl Grey. Dude. If there had been a mud wrestling pit in the room I would have thrown down! (tongue in cheek folks, tongue in cheek. I still think Carriger is way off-base but hey - that just means more Earl Grey for me!)
- The Breathless Reads panel was very lively and it just makes me want to read more YA. Seriously, I need to find me a sugar daddy so I can quit my job and have time to read all the books I want to read.
- I have a bit of a girl crush on Meg Cabot. I don't know, she's just funny and quirky and I wish she was my bestest girlfriend so I could have coffee (or tea) with her on a regular basis.
- So great to see Zoe Archer, Christine Cody/Chris Marie Green/Crystal Green, Tessa Dare, HelenKay Dimon, Judy Duarte, Jennifer Haymore, Linda O. Johnston, Kara Lennox, Sylvia Day, Debra Mullins, Judith Stacy/Dorothy Howell, and Laura Wright again.
- I finally met Jill Sorenson in person!
- Woot! I met Sara Ramsey who is my contact for my upcoming San Francisco RWA trip!
- Shayera! Only my most favoritest librarian in southern Cali (sorry coworkers - she just is).
- Zuri Day has 1) a great accent (Caribbean of some sort - Jamaican maybe?) and 2) the best hair on the planet. It's a big, beautiful mass of curls. But I tend to covet naturally curly hair. I've got this wavy underneath, stick-straight on top nonsense that is just a pain in the butt now that perms have been out of vogue for oh.....more than a decade.
- Lunch! We got grilled cheese and yummy tomato soup. I'm sure it kept the cost down as well, but man - it was a great lunch! Everyone just raved about it and honestly? No rubber chicken = good thing.
- We got ice cream sundaes for dessert! Seriously, ice cream sundaes. I somehow managed to restrain myself and not lick the bowl clean.
9 comments:
It was a fantastic day. I was so happy to see folks I hadn't seen for so long. And I did take a few pictures. But I realized we didn't take any of you, me & Wena. *sigh* so we all suck, lol.
Agree on everything you said, with the exception of the Earl Gray thing. I am not a fan.
Did you see the cover on Zuri Day's new book? Simply gorgeous and romantic. I must pick it up when it's released.
You'll have to share the earl grey with me. Of course, I have to admit I started drinking it because of Captain Jean-Luc Picard.
Gail's a hoot though. Even if she does like Twinings and English Breakfast. (BLECH to both!)
I'm with Gail. Earl Grey is tea for people who don't like tea, or as my daughter puts it, "Training tea."
Give me Assam, Darjeeling or good old PG Tips any time! Bergamot belongs in perfume bottles, not tea!
It must be a So Cal Blogger thing - we tend to suck with the pictures....
I need to try steampunk. I'm really burnt out on just about everything "otherworldly" - but I love the Victorian era and I think the history elements would help me along.
OMG, y'all are keeeeling me! LOL Earl Grey is what I call my "old stand-by." It's my favorite in so far as to say I always come back to it, and I usually have some in the Bat Cave. But just about any variety of black tea and I'm all good. Green tea is for when I'm sick and I need to be just about on my death bed to drink herbal. Blah.
Sounds like it was a really nice event! And it proves the food doesn't have to be fancy to be enjoyable! Yay on hanging out with Lori and Rowena! :)And good stuff holding off at 4 books ;) Wished I've been there!
I found most Steampunk hard to understand outside of League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen - because the fact it was a graphic novel helped explain things better. I think it's because the ones I tried were so serious. Whereas Gail puts a lot of humor into her books - which makes some Steampunkers mad but for me makes the books easier to understand.
Plus it helps that Alexia actually TALKS about things. I fell in love with the books because she actually says in front of the hero all the reasons he shouldn't be into her. Whereas most books she thinks it all the time until his Magic Wang gives her a self esteem boost. Everything's fixed without them ever talking it out. Just some sex and BOOM! All her psychological hang ups are fixed.
I HATE that in books. Sex shouldn't fix everything. Especially long term self esteem issues.
Another reason to love Alexia, unlike other heroines, she doesn't try to run off and do things by herself. She seeks out advice and help. Like women IRL do. So awesome to show a woman being strong by doing what women do rather than trying to fake it by doing what men do.
Nath: It was a lot of fun, and great to see so many local authors. We're a bit spoiled on that front, which makes life easy for me when I need to scare up an author for a library program :)
The food was good, just nice comfort food. And the ice cream sundaes were just plain fun. They brought the toppings out in separate dishes so we got to build our own dessert. Yum!
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