The 2010 RWA conference doesn't kick into high gear until tomorrow, but I overscheduled myself as usual -- rather than giving my poor California body clock a chance to catch up, I forced myself out of bed at 7:30am (4:30am at home, alas), into a dress AND makeup AND defrizzed hair (miracle of miracles), and downstairs in time to attend the Beau Monde retreat. The Beau Monde is a special-interest online chapter devoted to all things Regency; I joined a couple of months ago, and am consistently impressed by the quality and quantity of historical knowledge demonstrated on the loop.
So, I was quite looking forward to the retreat, and it didn't disappoint. The first panel I attended was about a Regency romance seminar taught at Yale last year, which thrilled me to no end because I'm glad to see romance start to get a teensy tinsy modicum of respect in academia. The second panel likely would have shredded that teensy tinsy modicum of respect -- it was all about courtesans, whores, and the men who loved them (or, at least, paid them a farthing to toss their skirts up against the nearest available alley wall).
After the Beau Monde lunch (with Gaelen Foley, acclaimed Regency writer, as the keynote speaker), I skipped over to the Golden Network retreat. The Golden Network is another special-interest online chapter, but this one is only open to current and former Golden Heart finalists. They had similar content as last year, but it was still eyeopening; in the most brutal display of sadomasochistic behavior I've seen since "Secretary" (or the Folsom Street Fair, perhaps), authors anonymously submitted first pages of their works, and then the moderator read those pages while a panel of editors and agents said 'stop' at the point where they would stop reading. Only one entry made it all the way to the end of the first page without anyone saying stop; several of them lost every single agent/editor in the first paragraph. The bar for publication is so incredibly high that it can be scary and disheartening to hear this; but as I did not submit a page, I just sat back, drank my coffee (while wishing desperately that it was Diet Coke, my one true love) and enjoyed the show.
After the Golden Network retreat was over, I hung out for a couple of hours with Grace and Tina, who are both part of the San Francisco chapter. Grace is up for a Golden Heart in Regency this year (which I am presenting at the awards ceremony on Saturday, since I won last year!), and Tina is doing some fascinating stuff with self-publishing on Amazon -- and more importantly, we seem to click well, and Grace and I share a love for Catherine Coulter and some of the other "ew, gross, 80s" romance novels that gave romance a bad name, what with all the abductions, rapes, bodice rippings, forced marriages, etc.
Tina, Grace and I then attended the Literacy Signing, at which published authors sell and sign their books, with the proceeds going to benefit literacy programs. I bought way too many books -- on the first pass, I got books from Eloisa James, Courtney Milan, Elizabeth Hoyt, and Carolyn Jewel from the San Francisco chapter. I may have been utterly awkward with Eloisa James; I'm having lunch with her on Friday, which I won in an auction, but she now probably thinks that I'm a weird stalker fangirl because I a) knew that she had been in Paris, since I follow her on Twitter, and b) bought a paperback of the book she *just* released after saying that I already read it on the plane yesterday (but in my defense, I read it on my Kindle, and it was good enough that I want a paperback as a keeper). So, we'll see if she shows up to lunch, and whether there are any hotel staff standing by in case I turn out to be rabid and crazy.
I parted ways with Grace and Tina, came back to my room with the intention of taking a nap before dinner -- then remembered that I had forgotten a couple of people whom I meant to get signatures from, because the room was huge and I failed to plan ahead. So I dashed downstairs again and got books from Tessa Dare (adore - she actually ran out of books, but signed a nameplate for me), Sabrina Darby (have been meaning to read her book for ages, and she was at the Beau Monde retreat this morning), Sarah MacLean (loved her "Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake"), and Addison Fox (one of my Ruby Slipper sisters, who writes paranormal). I failed to track down the other Ruby Slippered Sister who was signing, but at that point, I was loaded down and late for dinner, so I ran upstairs...
...and then as it turns out, dinner ended up being much, much later than anticipated. We left the hotel on time, got to the restaurant fifteen minutes early for our 8:15pm reservation -- and then weren't seated until almost 9pm. The food was outstanding (we ate at Kouzzina, owned by Cat Cora, whom I adore from 'Iron Chef America'), and I had a Greek lasagna that smelled strongly of cinnamon and tasted divine. I also had two glasses of wine, which made me quite chatty, particularly on an almost empty stomach. But, my table had a v. good time, even if we didn't eat until 10pm.
And now, I really, really must go to bed -- I'm not going to be foolish enough to get up at seven tomorrow morning, but I should get out of bed sometime. More to come tomorrow!
