My First-Ever RT Booklovers Convention

My first-ever RT Booklover’s Convention (thank you, Linnea Sinclair and Lydia Kang for inviting me to your panels), and I’m a bit overwhelmed and muzzied.  The muzziness is easy to explain.  I came down with the plague about two days before I was to leave, going from a lyric soprano on Sunday to a full (if froggy) bass by Friday and just in time for my panels.  Still recovering…if the tenor section needs help, I’m your gal…but I’m better enough to want to highlight a couple things about this really, really interesting conference.  Wish I had photos of this all, but I was frequently too taken up in the moment to think of a picture, and then by the time I did . . . the photo op was past.

Best fan moment: This is a toss-up because the things that personally tickle you–like the teen who’s read your trilogy and just so *thrilled* to meet you, it’s kind of humbling (and how can you not like that?)–are different from a sight that sort of typifies what you’re after as an author.  So while I’d love to say that, yes, my best fan moments were those when kids gushed . . . that would be wrong.  The very BEST moment came at the Teen Day Party when I spotted this thin little whippet of a kid–fourteen?  Fifteen?–staggering past with an armload of books (had to be at least a dozen) and this huge grin on her face.  Like, *I so scored.*  One thing these kids loved: books.  Not ebooks.  Didn’t see a kid with a single solitary Kindle or ereader.  No, these kids wanted the real deal.

Best hair: I honestly couldn’t tell you.  There were so many great dos, and I only managed to break from my trance to snap a pic of one:

Best personal fangirl moment: Easy-peasy: in response to a question about how he knows so much about the military given that he’s never served, Lee Child’s assertion that if you write anything with enough authority, people will believe it.  Runner-up comment: when Child said that the key to a happy marriage is one where the spouses spend most of their time on different continents (he loves New York; his wife adores England).  Runner-up moment: the moment I realized I was breathing the same air as Lee Child.

Best question: During my speed reading session, which I shared with a dozen other fab authors, the kid who asked what it felt like when that first book came out.  There is no other moment quite like it, pure and simple.

Best response to a question: I don’t even remember what the original question was, but Cat Asaro responded with a wonderful question of her own: *How come when John Green does what so many other writers have been doing for years (and done before), everyone goes ga-ga?*  (I’m paraphrasing here.)  Cat’s response wasn’t bitter; it was a good and honest question–one with no easy answer and to which she didn’t have one, though it’s been written about in depth (at least in terms of the New York Times) on one of my favorite blogs: here (http://www.stackedbooks.org/2013/11/a-closer-look-at-new-york-times-ya.html) and here ( http://www.stackedbooks.org/2013/11/a-closer-look-at-new-york-times-ya_5.html).  They’re long entries, but the gist is that, despite what you hear (and might think) about women authors’ “dominance” in YA and on the best seller lists, think again: women don’t dominate.  Men do (and this also translates into dominance by certain houses; for example, Penguin, who publishes Yancey and Green (and Dessen), had the most books that made it to bestseller-dom.  Women make the list (and who compiles the list seems to have some bearing on gender), but they stay on the list for a much shorter period of time, and seem to fall off very rapidly.  There’s much more to the articles than this, so I’d encourage you to take a look and then click the links to read about gender-disparity in general, from who wins the Caldecott to books deemed “best” YA novels ever (John Green makes the list five times, followed by Tamora Pierce–and you have to scratch your head: *Really?*  Best EVER?).

Most *holy shit* moment: seeing the throngs at the Book Fair thronging, and most toting suitcases full of books.  The wait to check-out was over two hours.

Best geeky device doubling as a funky must-have accessory: Beth Revis has this absolutely cool little pedometer called the Misfit Shine. This isn’t her neck, but you get the idea.  Really simple, quite futuristic.  Very sleek and snazzy.  MUST.  HAVE.

Most revelatory moment: when I realized that what Kris Rusch wrote about several weeks ago–about writers networking and helping other writers–is really what RT is all about and what nearly every writer I met said was the most important part of the convention: seeing old friends and acquaintances (like Jenna Black–who knitted that stunner herself–

and Sarah Rees Brennan) while making new ones (Lydia Kang,

Vivi Barnes,

Jennifer Lynn Barnes,

as well as Erica O’Rourke, Jackie Kessler, Bethany Hagen [whom I’d met before in Tucson not long ago but thoroughly enjoyed re-meeting 😉 ] and on and on).

Runner-up Revelatory Moment: talking with Kelley Armstrong and Melissa Marr, and marveling at how they manage to pull this YA track off year after year–and write as well as they do.  Kudos, ladies, and thank you.

Good times.  Exhausting times.  Quite a time.