Okay– so we’ve been driving for six hours and I’m waiting for Uber Eats and I’m exhausted. I’m in a hotel room with the fam in the shitty side of Salt Lake City, and I’m trying to put my week into words and…
Can’t do it.
Can’t brain words.
What I’m going to do is babble a little about some of the high points and then, hopefully my pizza will arrive and I can curl up into a little ball and sleep.
So…
* Dinner and drinks with my publisher and editor and promotions director. Just because we like each other’s company. And because, just once, I had alcohol. And it was Denver. And I got a little drunk. And they were delighted.
* Peeps. Kate McMurray, Rayna Vause, Kathy Tully, LaQuette, Adriana Herrera, Harper Collins, Geoffrey Symon, Tere Michaels, Mary Calmes, The Book Taster, Victoria Sue, Charlie Cochet, M.A. Vance, Pamela Moran, Cindy Dees, Karen Rose, Sara Lundsford– you guys, I can’t have an event without seeing ALL OF YOU (yes, Harper–you’re new, but damn, you’re on my list now!) because there’s just SO MUCH AWESOME. And Damon Suede always gives me a long hug which I find I need at every event. So <3 p="">
* Geoff Symon’s autopsy class– WOOT. K9 Search and Rescue Class– WOOT! Karen Rose’s craft class– WOOT! Erica Ridley’s Newsletter Class– WOOT! Rayna Vause, Catherine Bybee, Jillian David, LaQuette and (I’m sorry I forgot the fifth person!) did a medical terminology and general knowledge class that rocked my world– WOOT!!! There were some other classes in there I swear, but the upshot is, I learned lots and lots of useful shit.
* Sonali Dev in a sari before the librarian’s luncheon. That is all.
* Seeing Rita Clay Estrada (whom they named the RITAs after?) at the information desk. *swoon*
And finally…
* Meeting Jason Gaffney, and his mother Suzanne Brockman, and being invited to SIT AT THEIR TABLE when Suzanne got the Lifetime Achievement RITA and then OMFG BURNED THE PLACE DOWN with a blistering, heartfelt speech about how the world–and romancelandia– needs to open its heart and its mind to diversity…
I’ve got no words.
I cried.
I rejoiced.
I got ANGRY.
Jason is a fan of mine. Suzanne Brockman’s son is a FAN OF MY WORK.
And I’ve loved her work since a little after Chicken was born.
Her story about her son in Hot Target (it’s at the beginning– it’s sort of famous) is one of the inspiring moments for my own writing. It would take a few years, but when I started writing Vulnerable, her insistence that love is love is love had been beating in my heart that entire time. When Green arrived on the scene and was sad because he and Adrian had loved each other but now Adrian was in love with Cory…
Suzanne Brockman was one of the voices that made that okay for me. That made it something to celebrate.
So, yes.
I got to watch her talk about diversity in fiction in no bullshit, come and get me terms.
It was GLORIOUS.
She’s more my hero than ever.
And yes– I exploded into silver sparkly happy dust all over Denver.
I’ve yet to come down.
