Dear Author: Romance Book Reviews, Author Interviews, and Commentary

Bloggers aren’t the only ones recounting their adventures in San Francisco. Authors do it (and have done it before bloggers even began attending). Jude keeps track of everyone at Blogging Nationals where you can find the most up to date information about RWA San Francisco such as Louisa Edwards pre-conference horror story of the hotel running out of power. Bring a flashlight, kids, and possibly an extra battery for the laptop.

Kristen Painter and others are keeping track of what the YA authors are doing. Fictionistas will be doing a series of interviews with the YA Rita finalists (both the Young Adult category and the YA books in the Best First Book category) during the week of Nationals.

Come check out what Melissa Marr, Maureen Johnson, Simone Elkeles, Kelly Parra, and Rosemary Clement-Moore have to say. And as an added bonus, if you post a comment during that week, you’ll be entered to win a totebag full of YA books from the conference! It’s that simple. The more times you post, the more times you’re entered to win, so check out each day’s interview.

Interviews will be posted from July 28-Aug 2 at www.fictionistas.blogspot.com.

And …

I’ll be blogging from RWA Nationals in San Francisco at the end of the month along with about 10 other bloggers. I’ve set up a special page here at Dear Author that will contain both substantive posts (hopefully with lots of pictures) and my tweets (the one liners that give you kind of a blow by blow experience). If Wordpress comes up with an iPhone blogging platform, I might not tweet at all but just post directly to the site so the tweet portion of the site may be eliminated.

I put everything on a separate page so that those who don’t really care about RWA can ignore it and those that want to know all about can access the posts regularly.

Another new feature for this year’s RWA Nationals is a blog that we set up for all the bloggers called blognationals.com. BlogNationals is a one stop reading place of sorts that will host all of the RWA related blog posts by the affiliate bloggers. Those are identified in the sidebar of the blognationals.com site.

Aimless Ramblings about Living Life…

What’s this you say? I read quite a few blogs outside the romance blogosphere and many of the big ones have a daily open thread where the commenters drive the bus. I thought we would test out an open thread here at Dear Author.

The rules for Author Promo Night Open Thread are as follows:

The book has to be released in that month (i.e., anything released during the last week of April would be a May release)
You can post for yourself or you can have a friend post for you if the idea of posting about your book paralyzes you .
No self published authors unless you write romance. No, I am not a POD hater, I am just thinking about the manageability of the thread.
Think about the readership. I.e., does your non fiction book about psoriasis really fit?
This one is more of a guideline than a rule, but be smart about your comment because if it is just a link to your website and the title of your book, I doubt you are going to get any interest.
DA reserves the right to delete the post if it promotes objectionable content (i.e., no daddy/daughter incest recommends …

another test - pay not attention.

RWA is a writer’s conference. It is about the business and craft of writing. As a non aspiring writer, I went as a fan and a blogger to see what it was all about.

While some authors were not happy to see readers and bloggers at RWA, most everyone that I met was delightful. Of course, the first question that springs to mind is whether I will be reviewing these authors in the future. Absolutely. I would think that the authors I met would expect that I be fair and honest else they wouldn’t visit in the future and neither would the rest of you. Further, all these authors deserve to be given an honest and non patronizing review. To do otherwise would indicate I have no respect for them.

Wednesday for me, and for RWA, is all about the literacy signing. When I arrived at the Marsalis ballroom, I was met with quiet and peace. I had no idea what was coming. We worked for hours, unpacking and repacking and counting the books. Then alphabetizing these hundreds of books. When I left at noon, …

Best Traditional Romance

Barb Hannay is from Australia and was not present to accept her award.

Claiming His Family by Barbara Hannay, Harlequin Mills & Boon, Romance - (373039077)
Kimberley Young, editor

Best Short Contemporary Romance

Jessica Bird/J.R. Ward

From The First by Jessica Bird, Harlequin Enterprises, Silhouette Special Edition - (0373247508), Stacy Boyd, editor

Best Long Contemporary Romance

Lori Handeland who has an urban fantasy series debuting in 2008

The Mommy Quest by Lori Handeland, Harlequin Enterprises, Harlequin Superromance - (373713347), Johanna Raisanen, editor

Best Inspirational Romance

Tamera Alexander, whom I accosted as she was trying to make her way back to her room. She was accompanied by her lovely mother and editor

Revealed by Tamera Alexander, Bethany House Publishers - (0764201093), Karen Schurrer, editor

Best Romantic Novella

I took a picture of Roxanne St. Claire, who looked beautiful by the way, but somehow it was eaten by my camera.

“‘Tis the Silly Season” in A …

Everyone is getting ready for the party. Sybil is brushing her hair. Kristie and Wendy are putting finishing touches on their makeup.

My fingers are tired of typing one line posts (as I guess some are tired of reading them). Today is a less frenetic day. I met Heather Osborn for lunch and she shared some interesting projects that she is looking at including one with an Elizabeth Vaughan like feel. I reminded her that Jayne and I both really enjoyed Vaughan’s previous stories, the War trilogy. Vaughan is moving to Berkley for her next published series.

I then joined the Smart Bitches briefly for their Bitching Hour. Much laughter was ensuing. After the socializing, I headed down to the St. Martin’s Press and Bantam signing. The Bantam signing had displays of each author and the cover of their next book. Lara Adrian’s cover for her December release was beautiful. There was a long line for Sherry Thomas and the arc giveaway of her Private Arrangement. On the St. Martin’s Press side, the longest line was for Lisa Kleypas’s arc of Mine Till Midnight.

I headed back up to the room to pack up my boxes of books and then stood in line for 20 minutes to ship them from the Hyatt business office. …

At the Bitching Hour with the Smart Bitches who have First Sale stickers for their Smart Bitches Guide to Romance.

Having coffee with Sybil and then off to lunch with Heather Osborn. Tired with a slow schedule. Thank god.