Last week I attended the very last Romantic Times convention. I had a great time meeting with the wonderful people at Sourcebooks–authors and editors and publicists–but it was a little sad finding out it was RT’s final year. ? Of course, the convention will morph into something else, with a different name for next year, and though it won’t be the same, there will be something to take its place. Not so for the magazine.

I’m really devastated about RT Magazine and the RT Book Reviews coming to a close. RT Book Reviews does an amazing job and is one of a few shining places where romance writers can be taken seriously and be guaranteed a fair review. I actually met Jill Smith the woman who gave me my wonderful RT review while at the convention. She was very sweet. My fingers are crossed that someone will invest in the magazine and continue it after this year, but I’m not holding my breath.

In addition to finding out about RT, I learned a lot from the convention about marketing and tropes and how much fun it is to be around avid readers and librarians and other writers. It’s one of those places where you’re as likely to discuss books in the elevator or bathroom as in one of the many workshops that are going on. I also attended my very first book signing. That was a hoot! I was fortunate enough that my publisher had given out my book to all the attendees of the conference, so I was able to speak to a lot of people who’d read or were looking forward to reading my book. I also met some non-attendees who were hooked on the premise and purchased some books at the convention.

After the book fair, Sourcebooks had a wonderful dinner where I met a whole bunch of librarians. I had a lovely talk with one woman about the Parish family culture. For those of you who don’t know, I Am Justice is the first novel in my the Band of Sisters series, which centers around a group of women adopted by Mukta Parish and brought up to be vigilantes. There’s a lot of backstory there that never makes it into any of the novels, so I was able to share my knowledge with one of the librarians. She was so intrigued by it all, that I decided to write up a packet on all things Parish family, so that people can find out more about this dynamic group of 28 adopted kids, mostly women–two adopted boys –and how this whole organization/family got started. If you’d like to receive a heads-up when I post this fun and informative packet, sign up for the newsletter! And, as always, thanks for making the long journey over to my blog. It’s always nice when people show up for a visit.