Three thousand of my closest friends and I descended upon the Marriott on Canal Street for the Romantic Times Book Lovers Convention in New Orleans. As you can imagine it was loud, crazy, exhausting and a hell of a good time.
Here are some of the highlights of my week.
The view out of the window was of the enchanting French Quarter. The Mississippi and Cafe du Monde were on the right and the St. Louis 
Cathedral on the left, the scenery was perfect.
My roommates for the week were Danielle Monsch and Crista McHugh. Crista had reserved us a table at the Court of Two Sisters for their Jazz Brunch.
Our waiter was Captain Vaughn, a charming gentleman who saw me attempting to eat my first crawfish and put an immediate stop to the “senseless murder.” He schooled me on proper crawfish eating technique by reminding me over and over to “Suck. Don’t bite it. Suck it good.” It was quite a while before Danielle was able to pick herself off the floor from laughing so hard.
Crista and I went on a ghost tour where I was able to capture orbs in a
photo taken within a former bordello. We also had our tarot cards read. According to my reader, I had the most positive reading she’d seen in a long time. Score! Also, I made it to the Cafe du Monde twice. Oh, those beignets were so yummy.
The convention was comprised of reader events and industry workshops. One of my favorites was the Cover Wars workshop from Jenn LeBlanc of Studio Smexy. While two artists took the same photo and turned them into two different genre of covers, Jenn took photos of her model, Tristan. He was lovely, and after listening to my arm-chair directorial advice, Jenn told me to step up and do some real directing. No need to ask me twice, I was ready. The best part was when I told Tristan to hold out his hands and I bound them with a length of whip. The front row gasped an audible, “Yes!” We had a good time. He was a great sport and did I mention he was lovely?
The opening event was at Mardi Gras World, which was massive, and Heather Graham hosted the closing festivities. You had to be there to believe what went down. I do have video. I was also able to spend time with my fellow Ellora’s Cave authors Jennifer Kacey and Erin Simone. We ripped it up many a night.
The biggest events were Saturday with the book fair and Fan-tastic day. Attendance was in the thousands and the day did not go by without its fair-share of controversy. All in all, I met a lot of great people, especially those who were playing the Seattle Author Search. We had so much fun, a bunch of other authors want to get in on the search next year.
Speaking of next year… RT 2015 is in Dallas. If the stars align, I should be there. And by stars I mean sell a bunch of books, so I ask you to help a girl out. 🙂
Till next year.