RT Day One

The first day of the RT Booklovers conference was great! Books, goodies, workshops, parties…where should I start? How about the business end first…workshops.

RT features a ton of workshops. At any given time there’s usually 15 different ones to choose from, everything from querying agents, to editing, to publisher spotlights, to marketing, to name a few. My first day consisted mostly of specialty workshops in the writer track: Understanding the Science of Crime (Dr. D. P. Lyle is fabulous and funny), and The Care and Feeding of a Paranormal Series. Geared toward writers, these workshops focused on research and longevity of writing a series.

The third workshop I attended was in the reader track, Sex in the Gritty or the Ugly Truth. An odd name for a very fun panel. Authors Barry Eisler and Jennifer St. Giles read sex scenes from various books and the audience had to vote on whether a man or woman wrote them. They even read a quote from Dark Lover, one of my favorite books. How they did it without blushing or giggling, I’ll never know, but the panelists were excellent.

Before the workshops started, the book haul began. We started at registration with the bag all the attendees got…it had two books in it. Then we (me, Killian, and Lisa) took a pass through the “Goody Room” where we were allowed to pick 9 free books from probably a couple hundred titles. Killian scored another half dozen at the historical panel she attended…and this is just the first day! Add to that all the bubbles, rulers, bookmarks, bandaid holders, chapstick, mirrors, sticky notes, trading cards, and other goodies that are everywhere, and we are loaded!

The day ended with the Bollywood party hosted by Ellora’s Cave. We got even more goodies and then there was dancing. Lisa and Killian ripped up the dance floor while I worked on keeping time clapping :-).

It was a long, fun day! On to the next…and 5 Times a Night!