Otherwise known as, what happened in Pittsburgh stays in Pittsburgh, LOL! Wow… talk about a wild ride–I was there from April 16th through 20th, a week of total immersion.

How can one describe what can only be called a booklover’s Mardi Gras? For the uninitiated, that’s what the Romantic Times Booklover’s Convention is all about—fun! Pittsburgh may never be the same after the event which lasted roughly a week… I got there on Wednesday, 4/16 and hit the ground running doing panels, parties, and laughing every few feet as I walked down the hotel hallways. It was truly like a huge high school reunion… but without any mean girls (BIG SMILE!) Only the nicest folks show up to RT, and as an author, you get so much love there’s just simply no way to repay it all… the best one can and should do is to simply “pay it forward.”

Of course the usual suspects were there, making my face hurt from laughter! I sat on a paranormal writing panel with authors Cheyenne McCray, Kelley Armstrong, Dakota Cassidy, Mary Janice Davidson, and Monique Patterson (St. Martin’s Press, Senior Editor), and by the time Mary Janice and Dakota got finished, I almost needed to be wearing Depends! We laughed so hard, the entire panel was out of control! Had a ball on the vampire writers panel with Jeanne Stein, Caridad Pineiro, Rosemary Laurey, and Kim Harrison, too. (All VERY funny ladies… but Mary Janice is out of her mind, LOL! Her one-liners are worthy of Hollywood stand-up.) But being on panels wasn’t the only place the usual suspects turned up—like bumping into Cindy Cruiger in the hallway, (queen of hilarious snark), which will have you walking away wiping your eyes from laughing and needing an inhaler.

But I confess to really losing control on the Multicultural panel—it’s all Kimberly Kaye Terry’s fault for putting me on there with crazy Camille Anthony, and Caridad… feeling like I should apologize to Anne Christopher and Marjorie Liu—who are such sweet souls! (So should Kimberly and Camille, LOL!) Here’s some pics…

Leslie, Caridad, Kimberly, Marjorie, and Anne–misbehaving

Then here’s me with Caridad Piniero, Marjorie Liu, Ann Christopher, and Camille Anthony

BIG CONGRATS to Anne and Marjorie, by the way, who won awards, yaaaay! And here I was on the panel with these esteemed authors and we just CUT UP… the whole thing devolved, but we got help from the audience, LOL!

However, things took a true turn for the worst, alas, the de-evolution of decorum on the erotica panels THAT LASTED TWO HOURS. There is a very dirty metaphor I could use here, but I will behave. Lemme see… whom shall I incriminate? Uh, huh… Renee Bernard was “supposed” to be moderating us, but I’ll go easy on her because with this crew, that was impossible… check this line up… me, Eric Jerome Dickey, Jade Lee (too crazy and another award winner—yaaay! CONGRATS!), Stephanie Burke—need I say more (?)… Ahem… plus Madeleine Oh (wild woman with a FANTASTIC Brit accent that makes everything she says sound wonderful), J.C. Wilder (who can also do stand up comedy from her one-liners), Adrienne Kama, and Robin Schone.

This panel was first thing in the morning. No one had had coffee. The night prior was the costume Fairy Ball. It got Coyote Ugly real fast. The audience aided and abetted us… asking questions like, “Do you write what you know?” Without a coffee filter, true confessions came out… the only man on the panel said it so plain that we didn’t need coffee–eyes popped open and laughter rang out. It was baaad. The discussion took a wild turn that got into the detailed intricacies of cultural differences in nomenclature used for certain body parts. (Did I say that politically correct enough? BIG SMILE) That’s all I can tell ya. Yeah… sooo… What happened in Pittsburgh stays in Pittsburgh—otherwise known as, if I tell ya, I gotta kill ya, LOL!

Then there were fabulous folks who I genuflected before when I saw them… the grand dames who were, and remain, completely generous as “sister authors” and/or publishing industry notables, namely, Christine Feehan, a true gem (we stole some laughs by the elevator—finding out that some people had just gotten stuck on the fourth floor between floors on the very one she was about to take to her suite!), Brenda Jackson, a doll… who shared the Book Expo “black out” with me when the ballroom lights literally went out, Pat Simmons and her media cohort, Lisa Watson—who kept after all of us and got us to the television station on time (and set up radio interviews like madwomen), plus Circle of Seven Production folks, Sheila English and Victoria Fraasa–living dolls… as well as Nicole Ferweda, RT Blogger and sweetheart, Anne Elizabeth (fantastically positive), and my local VFRW gang of cool fun ladies, Liddy Midnight—Faery Court organizer, Judi Fennell, and my sweet pea, Adele DuBois (Hey ladies!)

Here’s my VFRW cronies below: Judi, Adele,and moi (but Liddy was running around getting the Faery Ball ship shape for it’s “Under the Sea” theme, hence AWOL, but we still love her.) By the way, the ball was soooo pretty-decorated to the nines all glittery and blue/green jewel tones, gorgeous. We hung out at dinner…

But there were still lots and lots more folks that I had a great time with, too…

Not to mention my Book Expo table mates, Maya Banks and Michelle Bardsley (yo!) But who can forget the inimitable Lady of Barrow—Kathryn Falk, who did the Friday morning Pittsburgh Live TV show with cover models, costumed revelers, and a bunch of zany authors (’yours truly’ included)… as well as conference anchors (the ladies who hold everything down and keep it all together), namely Kathe Robins, JoCarol Jones, and Carol Stacy (who, ARE RT)—along with some very FINE cover models? Can you say “eye candy”? (Shssssh… don’t tell, it just walks by you in the hall–gawd I love that conference, LOL!)

Truly, I shouldn’t have even started naming names of who was there, because everybody was there, seriously! We had a dinner with St. Martin’s Press, where I got to meet more of my fellow SMP sister authors and laugh till my face hurt. Editors, agents, folks from the industry, book-sellers, et al, turned out in force. We’re talking bare chest cover model contests, Texas Hold ‘Em poker in an after party suite, receptions galore… a dizzying experience to be sure.

I know I’m forgetting folks, though, but would never do that in a second—blame it on being overwhelmed with the vastness of it all… bookseller buddies were there from overseas, too — wonderful Rosemary, who comes in an annual trek from Australia with a sweetheart of a gal, who has now moved to the UK, but Rosemary still came bearing Tim Tam chocolate cookies, oh, bless you both!… and my girl Ollie… and Annette Batista from BetweenYourSheets.com–who besides being a doll even taught me Cuban swear words for the Scarface book–yep… she did! It was research, hey, LOL! BIG THANK YOU–who knew? Dang a LOT of folks were there! Just everybody. You learn all sorts of things at RT, what can I say? But it’s all good… including…

Fantastic readers—I had dinner with a group of the most wonderful ladies at the Vampire Ball, (Tricia, Linda, Megan, Nancy — there were 10 at the table, so forgive me for leaving out names), who now own blackmail pictures of me in vamp drag, LOL—NO, I won’t post them, ha ha ha! I’m leaving them on their sites, as the shots in question involved fangs and necks. Megan has a cool blog, pics are here of the vampire scene: Vampire Ball

(BIG THANK YOU Linda for the lovely bookmark and Craisins to keep me going during the expo, and the pics!)

I also sat with a great crew during the Faery Ball and a wonderful group of Librarians from across the country at the Thursday luncheon… and laughed my hiney off with crazy Stephanie Burke, Wendy D’Armor, and Sarah (who promises to teach me bad words/slang in British Cockney), and a table full of fun folks at the awards luncheon… and then there’s all the spot sightings of great people (like I said before) in the hallways, at the dinner theater events, and of course, at the bar (BIG CHEESY GRIN.)

If you haven’t treated yourself to an RT extravaganza, and you’re a die hard reader… please make sure you go to just one. It is an experience that defies description. You’ll have a blast, will meet your fav authors—up close and personal… and Mona (from “Frozen Light”) will make you lose your natural mind at her jewelry counter with her handcrafted silver pieces that are one of a kind. Just be sure to allow yourself a day or two of post-RT recovery… you will not sleep, you will be exhausted… but always in a very good way—BIG SMILE!

Lots of Luv, Leslie

PS: I guessed the right number to win a Wolf Native American Medicine Wheel at the Southwest luncheon… guess what the number was? SEVEN! (7) Yeah! I had been joking at the table that since Bad Blood just came out, how cool it would be if I had that hanging in my office with a “Shadow Wolf” on it (for those who’ve read the book, you know why I said that.) Then this young woman comes to the table and tells us all to pick a number. We aren’t sure why at first and we look around a bit confused, but eventually we settle down and oblige her. As soon as I said “seven,” she smiled brightly and said, “That’s the number for this table–the centerpiece is yours.” Ahhh… don’t ya just love it when it works like that–BIG GRIN!

PSS: I KNEW I WOULD FORGET SOMEONE DEAR… Jaynie! I fall on my sword.
Here’s her blog and pic–a doll! Janie’s Blog of RT

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