Sunday, September 22, 2013

Yes, I Survived the Summer and the Gay Romance NW Meetup

It was no coincidence that my last blog post was right around the time that end-of-the-school-year events really started picking up...and that nothing got posted over the summer. Between the day job, summer travel, keeping the kiddies entertained and the occasional chance to write, I was really stretched. The only thing I really kept up on was FB, and that's only because the mobile app is pretty simple to work from. Blogging from my phone...not so much.

Now that it's getting really close to GRL, I figured I'd better update my website and do a bit of online housekeeping and realized I'd better get photos and stuff posted from my last event before GayRomLit hits with a whole bunch more pictures and posts!

Out to dinner with Rick Reed and his husband Bruce.

I was up in Seattle last weekend for the first Gay Romance Northwest Meetup. It was a one-day conference held at Seattle's beautiful downtown Central Library. Of course, since I got the royal treatment with front door drop-off service from a friend, I didn't manage to get a picture of the library before things got going.

There was a great keynote presentation by one of the librarians. This summer the library system purchased around two hundred GLBT titles for circulation, including books by most of the authors at the meetup. I think I have four there now--very cool! Then we had three well thought out panels with focuses ranging from craft to the publishing industry to GLBT in romance fiction.

First panel: Megan Derr, Astrid Amara, Stormy Glenn, Daisy Harris, Ethan Stone and Anne Tenino

Second panel: Traci Timmons-Gray, LC Chase, Samantha Derr, Lou Harper, Nicole Kimberling and me
 It was followed by a happy hour with a book signing, readings and general mingling and mayhem.

Total-E-Bound authors: Ethan Stone, Morticia Knight, me, Amber Kell and Daisy Harris


See? HAPPY hour.
 Such a great event, and the organizers and sponsors did a fabulous job. I'll definitely be back next year! Afterwards about two dozen of us went out for a late dinner at Buca de Beppo and I had a great time catching up with old friends and meeting new people. And (amazingly enough) one woman who's a sort of cross between the two--as in, I know who she is (since her twin sons danced at my daughter's dance studio, so I'd watched them for years) though we'd never officially met before. Turns out she's a writer in the genre too. Small world!!

The Oregon contingent! Anne Tenino, me, EJ Russell and Lynda Aicher




Okay, so I'm going to wrap this up before I start blathering on as is so aptly illustrated by the below candid shot. But never fear--I'll be back with more updates soon!

Hello, my name is Devon and I'm a hand-talker...