Imagine your best girlfriend -- the one who's gotten you through the toughest times imaginable, who's lifted your spirits when you've needed it most and who's always happy to describe to you the naughty parts of her favorite fantasies. Then multiply that by about 500 and you'll know what it's like to be part of the massive "RWA Readers for Life" literacy signing that went on earlier this evening at the RWA conference in D.C.
Readers got the chance to meet the authors who wrote the books that touched their lives -- and authors got to hear stories of those moments, as well as enjoy teary exclamations of praise, big hugs and even some detailed reminiscences of readers' favorite love scenes.
OK, that was me describing those love scenes, like when I reminded Jade Lee how dayum hawt the Chinese-monk-who's-not-really-Chinese hero of her erotic romance, "The Dragon Earl" makes me is. And then I just couldn't help visiting with some of my favorite peeps, Kimberly Kaye Terry (right, she of "Big, Spankable Asses" fame, whose new erotic romance, "Scream My Name" is excerpted this month in Cosmopolitan). Kimberly's shown here with Marilyn Puett (left), up-and-coming NYP and member of Writing Playground, a most excellent group blog and site for aspiring writers, and a fun place for readers to hang, too.
After the festivities of the 'literacy signing,' as it's known -- and it's well known because it's raised more than $600K for literacy charities since 1991 -- I attended a shindig that was one of the hottest tickets at this years' conference, the Romance Bandits' partay. That's 16 of em in the photo. The Romance Bandits is a group of 20 authors who began a group blog when they weren't yet pubbed, but all had won the prestigious RWA Golden Heart award given to writers' manuscripts not yet sold, but judged superior. Now, many of the "Banditas" are multi-published authors. Their place in cyberspace is warm, witty, welcoming and unbelievably entertaining. Their secret? No one knows for sure, but it could have something to do with the GR. That's the Golden Rooster, the cyber-award given to the first RB commenter each day. Lucky for me, I ended my day with the fuzzy little guy in my arms.
What're the big trends everyone's talking about? Back-to-back releases, more escapist plots and the fact that despite the economy, romance readers still are buying books. We're giving up expensive meals out and those cute new shoes to do so, but we're thinking it's well worth the sacrifice.
