GRL 2013 Recap, Day Two: Thursday and Nights of Neon

Black-light baby!!

Thursday morning dawned incredibly early to my poor West Coast night owl self, but I managed to pull myself together, thanking my lucky stars I'd avoided drinking the night before! No, this isn't me, but TA's pose is pretty much how I felt, lol.

RIP, TA...

 I donned my purple in honor of Spirit Day--a purple tank top and scarf with rainbow ball trim. The scarf had been spotted by my eagle-eyed 10yo daughter at a store. She immediately asked, "Mom, can I get it?" I told her, "Sure, if I can take it to Atlanta with me." She stared at me. "Wait. So basically you want to buy it for yourself." I nodded. "But you still end up getting it in the long run, soo...any more observations you want to make?" Nope. :)

With my Thorny button fundraising partner, LC Chase.

We went down to walk through the Supporting Author signing first. I loved it--it was great to meet all of the up and coming authors in the genre. I said hi to some familiar faces and met a lot of new people. Then we checked on our tables in the swag room and restocked. Our collapsible water bottles were flying off the table! Nice to know people are using them after the fact!

Kris Jacen's daughter did some recaptioning.

Archie's Voice camping--I think there are rum-soaked cherries in there!

My beloved friend Ethan Day had blessed me with a phone call a while back...to solicit me, the hussy, to moderate some of the author readings. Once he assured me that I would basically only be introducing the authors and keeping people from getting rowdy, I gave in. Around lunch time, all of the moderators and Ethan got together for a quick bite to eat and to review the safety features of our GRL aircraft, or actually how to turn on the microphones.

And your hosts for this evening are...

Didn't take long to have to put my newfound expertise in mike wrangling to use, as I moderated my first author readings ever that afternoon! My guinea pigs were the extremely gracious and awesome Deanna Wadsworth, Damon Suede and Heidi Cullinan. It was a packed house and thankfully I didn't mess up too bad or do anything to detract from the main attractions! Besides laugh like a crazy person--thanks for the lovely shot of my back fillings, Madison. I'll be sure to see my dentist before next year for some replacements.

 I managed to get to one panel that I wasn't either on or moderating and that was Amber, RJ and Stephani's Storytellers session on shifters. I noticed that all of them had a man in their life present, so I asked the guys about the gals' writing, and got some amazing and heartfelt answers that had the audience going "Awww..."

With Amber's husband, Stephani's son and RJ's hubby.

The RWA Rainbow Romance Writers had a chapter meeting that afternoon as well, and we ate Chinese takeout (which was great, kudos to whoever chose it!) and discussed...stuff. :) I think I ended up volunteering for something so hopefully someone will remind me when I need to actually do it! After that, the MLR opening reception was the first all-attendee event and featured a nice buffet of nibbles, drinks and plenty of time to visit before Ethan got up to thank everyone for coming and announced the location of next year's GRL--Chicago!

Going to Chicago!

With my dear friend Rick...

Trying to decide who's Spicy and who's Sweet!

What's your guess?

Then it was time to get ready for the first big evening event, this year's incarnation of the Juke Joint, with a blacklight neon theme and a DJ that had "Bear" and "Glow" in his name. Actually, he was a VJ, so the videos were up on the screen along with the music. We neoned ourselves up (including our neon Coach high tops) and hit the ground running. I don't think I left the dance floor once until they tried to kick us out.

Me and Jared...oh and Geoff Knight photobombing.

I call this the "before" picture since we aren't sweating yet.

Rocking neon lashes with Jo!

Jared in my OTHER neon shirt I brought. He looks much better in it than I would have!

Neon soul sistahs with Leigh!

See what I mean about getting sweaty?

With a flash...

And with just black light.

Cody and Stephani Hecht--love them!

Ethan and his harem.

Our hired DJ and our awesome volunteer one.

 
A fab addition this year was a scheduled after-party in the hotel pub closed to all guests but attendees, and Dalton (who does this sort of thing IRL) took charge of DJing for the first two nights before passing his knowledge along to Travis for the third after Dalton and Lori headed home. We were very grateful to the guys for keeping us dancing.

Aeriel view of the after-party "dance floor".

I had a great time hanging out after the after-party with a combo of old and new friends, and ended up making this a really late night. But hey...I figured I could sleep when I got home! :)

Up next: Day Three: Friday Fun Fair and an Enchanting Evening

If you missed Day One, HERE is the link.

Halloween Style Throwback Thursday

Love this time of year and have posted pretty reliably in past years because of it. Here are a few posts from Halloweens past for your perusal, including a list of a few of my favorite things, some videos I enjoy and revisiting a past contest that had a great turnout!

Originally Posted October 28th, 2010:

Some of my favorite things about Halloween:

• All the campy horror movies I love are all over cable.
• Squishing around in the innards of pumpkins--my hands are soo soft afterwards. Really!
• Costumes--from the darling to the dark! My lovely, princessey-aged little girls are going as a Goth demon (complete with horns) and a skeleton. Just painted all our fingernails black. Which leads me to...
• It's okay to send my girls to school with black nail polish and black lipstick on.
• Pumpkin scones, pumpkin lattes, pumpkin donuts...
• It holds Christmas decor at bay. Seriously, I think if there wasn't Halloween, the stores would have their displays up by August.

Originally Posted October 31st, 2012:

Here are two videos that I think really put the Happy in Happy Halloween!

This is my girls' favorite. Warning! Extremely catchy song! Listen at your own risk! If you're like me, you'll be singing it for weeks.

And this is one of mine! Does anyone remember the contest I held a couple of years ago to see who could name the most classic monster movies with clips in this video?

Here's the post from November 1st, 2010, announcing the winner of the video mash-up contest if you want to check out the list and how many movies there were!!:

I've had a ton of fun with this contest, and clearly there are some rabid movie fans out there! What a great response!

After watching this so many times I can now envision the clips along with the music (and likely will for life), I've listed as best I can the movies shown in the video, with the ones that every participant named correctly in red type:

House on Haunted Hill, Frankenstein, Young Frankenstein, Fiend Without a Face, Godzilla, Destroy All Monsters, Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula, Murders in the Rue Morgue, Beginning of the End, The Creeping Terror, Earth versus The Spider, The Hypnotic Eye, The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies (yes, that is a really long title, lol), The Wolfman, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, The Fly, Plan Nine From Outer Space, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, The Incredible Shrinking Man, The Mummy, Abbot & Costello Meet Frankenstein, Frankenstein meets the Wolfman, The Abominable Snowman, and The Mad Monster.

How did you do?? :)

My winner, with an amazing 20+ correct, is Andrea Speed! Andy, congratulations! Now...put the remote down and slowly back away from TCM and the Sci-Fi Channel! :) Once you pull yourself away from your popcorn, drop me a line at devonrhodes at hotmail dot com with your choice of book from my backlist (see the left sidebar if you need some help there).

And thanks to all my participants for joining in on the fun!

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Hope you enjoyed this look back at my Halloween fun from previous years! Be back soon with the second installment of my GRL Recap! Have a spooktacular Halloween, and don't do anything I wouldn't do!! 

GRL 2013 Recap, Day One: Atlanta Arrival, Workshop and My Crazy Ringtone

Time again for one of my favorite exercises of the year--writing my GRL recap. It was such a whirlwind of people and activity that I'm glad I took enough pics I can look back at to remember the timeline!

Rainbow nails all dolled up for GRL! With Leigh (r)

This year I flew in a couple of days early, on Tuesday, partially because it pretty much takes a full day to fly from Oregon to Atlanta (between the distance and the three hours lost), and partially so I could attend the first RRW Writers' Workshop on Wednesday. I was on the flight with Amelia Gormley, and we met up with my good friend Rick Reed at the airport to share a ride to the Melia Atlanta Hotel. Before we even left the airport, I was already getting texts asking if I was there yet!

Finally met Lorelei in person, and always great to see Rick.

When I walked into the lobby, I immediately recognized some very familiar faces and hugs abounded. Jared literally swept me off my feet, and I remember getting up close and personal with Amy, Cherie, Leigh and many others. Rick and I were invited along for dinner with a large posse that was forming, so after a quick hello to my awesome compadre and co-writer, TA Chase, who was working the registration desk, we headed out to walk to Metro Fuxon with a fun group of over a dozen peeps, all of whom I already knew either from online or one of the past two GRLs.

View from my end of the table!

Aaand, back down the other way towards me!

Da girlz.

Da guyz.

Loved meeting this lady!

Rick treated me to dinner. I'm such a cheap date, lol!

Cocktails with a kick. The food was great and really inexpensive.

Our al fresco "readings" outside Metro Fuxon.

In addition to my very inexpensive but yummy fish tacos and water (hydration time after flying all day!), we shared some of the best sweet potato fries I've ever had! After lingering and the requisite photo session (and an impromptu outdoor reading by Daniel and Jared, shown above), we headed back to the hotel, and I headed upstairs to unpack and reconnect with TA. We are each other's default roomies at events not only because we write together and are great friends, but also because we love to keep our room organized (*cough anal cough*), though I must say I slacked off a bit this year due to the after-parties...but that'll come later.

Wednesday morning came reallllllly early for me, because I'd got online and worked for a while, but forgot to set my computer time from Pacific to Eastern. Finally caught a glimpse of the room clock and about choked when I saw that it was actually 4:30am! TA had to be up and down at the registration desk early, and I (mostly) rolled out with her.

Love my Tata!

Would love to give her a quick shout-out as she was HEAD of the registration volunteers, so hats off--I think it all went great. :)

After a quick coffee and pastry at the breakfast, I headed to the first panel I was on, the Editor's Panel with Tere Michaels, Kris Jacen, Rachel Haimowitz, Sarah Franz and Heather Osborne, moderated by Kate McMurray. We had some great Q&A about what we do with our respective publishers, what we look for, where we saw the genre going and some of our personal fave tropes and worst pet peeves. All of us also took pitches later that day, and it was nice to see some of the attendees from the panel there.

I took a short break after that to continue to caffeinate, but TA and I managed to catch the last half of Kate McMurray's panel on Developing Setting. She had some great tips and reminders that I made note of, and loved her handout.

Yep, we're in the South. Sweet tea dominates!

The luncheon--omg, yay! food!--was a great gathering of those attending the Workshop, and we heard from the RRW board before the wonderful keynote speaker, KA Mitchell began. I loved listening to her talk, her anecdotes about growing up and riffs on how they affected how she got to where she in her life. I also had an extremely embarrassing moment when, though I could have sworn I had my phone on vibrate, it suddenly went off with my crazy ringtone for my British boss...a voice saying (in a loud, Brit accent), "Helloooo! This is the phone in your pocket! Please pick up the phone! You have a message... Helllooooo!" Thankfully it got a laugh, even from KA, and didn't interrupt her sweet and poignant closing. I'm also thankful that my head didn't explode when all the blood rushed to it!

With the very gracious and fun KA Mitchell.

I didn't get to any of the afternoon panels since I was alternately taking pitches and helping out in the bookseller's room. It's always great to talk to authors and prospective authors about their work. I also got to spend time with my Senior Editor and quasi-assistant, Rebecca, having met her that day for the first time in person after working together for quite some time! So wonderful to finally put a face to the wunderkind at the other end of the computer.

Bailey Bradford and Rebecca in the bookseller's room.

I wanted to make sure that Nicki and Rebecca, over from Great Britain, got to experience a bit of Atlanta and Southern cuisine, so I'd arranged for us, along with TA, to go to dinner that night at Mary Mac's, a landmark and just as great as I'd remembered. We had fun choosing our meals, and a nice breather before things really got rolling with GRL.

Me and TA with our awesome editor, Rebecca!

After we got back to the hotel, TA had to head to registration, Nicki and Rebecca headed for an early night (don't blame them!) and I popped in down at the outdoor pool-area cocktail hour closing the Workshop. Had a couple of great chats with Lori (Goodreads MM Group mod) and Eden Winters, then spent some time in the lobby chatting with the ever-increasing number of attendees before we called it a semi-early night--though the time spent up in our room was usually working on either story ideas or preparing swag, etc. :)

Roomies!! Devo and Tata forevah!

I'll be back later this week with officially kicking GRL off on Day Two: Thursday and Nights of Neon.

Men of Sports and the 2013 Rainbow Awards

The Rainbow Awards announcements brought it home to me this week that I haven't talked much about my International Men of Sports series with TA Chase that's had books releasing over the past several months. So here goes!

 

I'm thrilled that our second book in the series is a Finalist in the Gay Contemporary Romance category! Chasing the King of the Mountains is set in France during the Tour de France, and we had such a fun time writing it and researching the sport of team cycling.

Here's the blurb:

Pascal might be chasing the title of King of the Mountains, but will he realise in time that Laurent is chasing him?

Pascal Durant, one of the best mountain riders in the cycling world, was about to finally win his first polka-dot jersey denoting him King of the Mountains in the Tour de France. Then he suffered a horrific accident that left him unable to complete the race. In his forties and fighting chronic injuries, he knows he only has one more shot at the top.

Laurent Desrochers, an internationally known reporter, hears about his dear friend’s crash and watches a moving viral video of Pascal, bloodied yet unbowed, congratulating the winner. When Pascal tells him he’s going to do the Tour one last time, Laurent decides to convince his network to let him follow Pascal on his quest.

Friends for a decade, they had never thought of the other as more. Pascal’s focus on his sport and poor taste in men has never produced a long-term relationship. And Laurent’s constant travel causes a rift between him and his fiancé Jan that proves insurmountable.

Laurent finally realises his ideal partner has been in front of him all along. Can he pull Pascal’s focus from his goal long enough for him to know he’s being chased...and let Laurent catch him?

Available at Total-E-Bound, Amazon, ARe and more.

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Our first book in the series was given an Honorable Mention in the Awards. A Sticky Wicket in Bollywood is our India book and tells the story of a cricket player and a Bollywood actor.

Here's that blurb:
 
A handsome Bollywood actor must choose between his career and a rugged cricket player from his past, who he’s fallen in love with…again.

Rajan Malik has the world of Bollywood in the palm of his hand…a beautiful girlfriend, starring roles, adoring fans…He should be happy, but behind the façade lies a man conflicted and exhausted by the pressure placed on him by his ill mother, his agent and society. His life is not his own, and all he wants to do is escape.

Indian Premier League cricketer Ajay Singh can’t believe how bad his university roommate Rajan looks when he spots his picture in the paper. They had parted on bad terms. Still, he’s moved to offer Rajan his support by renewing their friendship.

But friendship was not all they shared back then. Though Ajay is out, Rajan isn’t willing to give up his carefully cultivated Bollywood image to be with him publicly. And with very little privacy, it won’t take long for someone to find out they are more than friends.

Their renewed secret affair is fraught with difficulties as they deal with the death of Rajan’s mother, the secret of Rajan’s till-now absent father, a jealous friend, intrusive social media, and threatening notes from someone who seems to know all about their private lives.

It’s a bit of a sticky wicket they find themselves in. Will it be too late when both men finally realise that they’ll need to compromise, or stand to lose everything?

Available at Total-E-Bound, Amazon, ARe and more!

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Our latest release is set in Germany. At First Touch follows two soccer/football teammates as they are made to realize how right they are for each other if they just open up.

Here's that one:


Excelling at the game he loved was everything to King, until Lukas showed him at first touch how much better his life could be…

Ewansiha 'King' Kroenig is at the pinnacle of his professional football career, even with a problem knee. He keeps his cool and keeps his head down, and that control has served him well. King is bisexual and has been known to date beautiful women, while he also occasionally satisfies his craving for men with the team’s trainer. It’s a good life, but starting with one bizarre and personal request from his ex, Silvia, his orderly life goes spinning out of control.

Lukas has no problem admitting he’s gay, but with a loudly homophobic team captain, he knows better than to go there around the team. He has his whole career ahead of him and is being groomed to take over for their star player, King Kroenig. If he admires King for more than his athletic prowess, what can it hurt?

No harm, no foul…until a certain trainer who knows them both well decides to play matchmaker, then all bets are off. And once they’ve experienced that first taste, they want more. But it’s not as simple as hooking up or dating when you’re teammates, with high profiles and little privacy. And when they each suddenly gain responsibilities they never expected, they must figure out a way to reconcile their personal lives with the expectations of others.

Reader Advisory: This book contains one MMM ménage scene and brief references to offscreen underage sex.


Available at Total-E-Bound, Amazon and ARe.

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Right now we're hard at work on book four, titled Blindsided. In this one we go Down Under and see what happens when you throw together a hunky but lonely rugby player and a popular lifeguard. :) So far, the results have been steaming hot! Blindsided will release towards the end of 2013. More to come when we get cover art and a blurb written! :)

After that...well, we have over a dozen more countries and sports in mind. So as long as we enjoy writing it and you enjoy reading it, we'll continue to serve up the athletic men you love in far-off and unusual settings.

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...

RT 2013...Day Five...Book Fair and FAN-Tastic Excuses to Wear a Cocktail Dress

Big GIANT Book Fair. Yes it was! Not sure anything I can write could do it justice, but here are a few pics:

LA Witt/Lauren Gallagher talks to a fan.

The lovely Ariel Tachna in purple! Shocker! ;)

Damon in the utili-kilt.

Marie always dresses so nicely! And you should see the shoes!

In the foreground are Brynn Paulin and Kate Pearce.

I just love Marie Harte's smile!

Bronwyn Green is even nicer in person!

Isabelle Drake was so dang cute and had a permanent smile!

Confused as usual. I brought Ethan a Diet Coke and he was fine after that.

The lovely Lynne Connolly and her Brit decor!

Leigh with JP Barnaby

I actually left the hotel! Carol Lynne, Ethan Day, Simone Anderson, Suzanne Graham, TA and I made a snap decision, grabbed a couple of cabs, and headed to Hamburger Mary's (during the day! not for the drag show!) for lunch. I had a great Ahi wrap and chili cheese TaTa's (tater tots). I know that sounds like a weird combo, but it was! LOL.
 

Love the GLBT sandwich..totally stealing that idea!

The sad, lonely little pie.

Saturday was packed with cool stuff, even after the Book Fair. It was both FAN-Tastic Day and Teen Day. To me, that was almost my favorite part--seeing all of the hundreds of young readers so excited and lining up to get books and meet authors. It was very gratifying to see the next generation of readers!

The FAN-Tastic Author event was a free-for-all, really! Stacks upon stacks of free books, authors everywhere, food, raffles. I met some of the authors I remember reading as a young girl when I first started reading romance! In fact, I got an ARC of a new book by Jude Deveraux, who I first read thirty years ago! Wow!

Damon was the MC, not singing karaoke.

The wonderful Elizabeth North from DSP, who sponsored the event.

After we hauled our loot back to our rooms and spent some time packing, I wanted to spend some more time with Carol Lynne, who was there but not registered--just hanging out with Ethan. So we went down and sat in the corner table at Spectators (lol) and visited until it was time to say goodbye to them both until GRL this October. *sniff*

Okay, I guess I don't look TOO sad!

 No time for the sads! It was the last night, and time for the cocktail party and dance, so I wore...a cocktail dress. Stood to reason. ;)

Yes, I always end up dancing with Damon. Whether alone...

 

...or with a crowd!!

Marie Sexton and I were twinsies in little black dresses.

 And so our evening concluded, and for me, that was the wrap on RT. Nothing left to do but the practical stuff--finish packing, shipping, checking out, checking into the flight and heading home. It's always so hard to say goodbye to everyone. It was an amazing experience to be with so many people who share my passion for books. I know that this is the first of many RTs to come for me!

"Goodbye all, and see you next year at RT 2014 in New Orleans!"