Having a Ball!

Sue Moorcroft with me and Susanna

A writer’s life can be very lonely, but occasionally Cinderella gets to go to the ball – literally!  This week I am at the RT Booklovers’ Convention in Kansas City with Susanna and we are having the most wonderful time!

It’s the 30^th Anniversary of this convention (and the RT magazine has been going for longer than that) so we attended a special ball to celebrate this achievement.  Kathryn Falk, the founder of RT, made a speech and reminded us how far romance has come during these 30 years, how things have changed and improved for romance writers, which was great to hear.  She also introduced some of the legends of romance – such as Jude Devereux, Robyn Carr, Karen Robards, Janelle Taylor, Bobbi Smith (who I’ve had the pleasure to talk to during the convention) and Mary Balogh.  I'm ever so slightly (ok, very!) starstruck, but these ladies are all so nice!

There are talks, workshops and “mixers” galore with drinks, nibbles (such as chocolate fountains!) and giveaways.  My suitcase will be groaning when I go home and my head is more or less spinning the whole time, but I am very glad I came.  The best thing about this convention though is that there are so many enthusiastic readers here and it’s great fun chatting to them, whether it’s in the lift/elevator, in the queue for lunch or at a party.

I don’t often get to play dress-up, but at the ball I really did feel like Cinderella in my (fake) tiara and evening gloves.  Then I had to turn into more of an evil step-sister for the Freaky Friday party – Goth-rella perhaps?  But it was just as much fun and everyone joined in.

As for the fabled cover models (yes, I attended the Cover Model Party), well, they’re really nice guys.  The fact that some of them have longer hair than me is a bit weird, and I would have preferred not to see them in tights (!?!), but they seem to enjoy what they do and who can blame them?  What’s that I hear?  You want photos?  Ok, then, here’s one I took the other day :-)

CJ Hollenbach

Hope your week has been as good as mine!