Otherwise known as, “What happened in Hotlanta, Stays in Hotlanta!”

No, seriously, LOL… some things that went on in the ATL, I’m not at liberty to speak on–and won’t… but…

I hope everyone had a safe, happy, fun-filled Labor Day holiday and got the last of the summer beach grains of sand between their toes—or barbecued like there was no tomorrow. For me, Labor Day means an annual trek to the nation’s largest Sci-Fi convention held in Atlanta, GA.

For those who have never been, DragonCon is “an experience!” It always is, LOL! Imagine 40,000 to 60,000 people converging on three downtown Atlanta hotels (The Marriott Marquis, The Hyatt, and The Hilton), which are all connected by skywalks so that one can look down on the colorful chaos below. Waves of conventioneers dress in wildly creative costumes. You can see Lord of the Rings characters, Star Wars storm troopers, Battle Star Galactica folks, Star Trek (old and new school), vampires, werewolves, aliens, X-men (and women), you name it, people represented their passions with zeal. And, mind you, all of these are not your cheaply created costumes (although, just like Mardis Gras, some came with barely any costume at all!)… no, some people really went all out with genuine replicas that must have cost thousands. Then, of course, you had the t-shirt bearers (like me) who showed up with the slogan shirts that would make you stop, read, and laugh out loud. That convention hosts the best t-shirts around, I swear!

But beyond the eye-candy, the people are friendly and the fun is over the top—and there’s just about every conceivable aspect of the science fiction and fantasy genres of film, books, art, games, movie weapon replicas, and merchandise one could ever imagine… down to a Saturday morning street parade that is literally a Sci-Fi Mardis Gras, bead-throwers and candy-tossers included. (Yeah, people bring their kids to this to see their fav TV/Movie characters, too—just be sure to hold onto your kids in the crowd crush, and do realize that at night, er, uhm, there is a lot of hotel activity going on that may not be PG-13. Nevertheless, in any big convention, “the freaks come out at night,” so hey. Forewarned is forearmed.)

Now, with all the guest authors, movie producers, celebs and industry folks—scheduling this year got to be a bizarre thing. Panel commitments materialized out of thin air, along with book-signings, catching authors and readers by surprise. Unfortunately, things that were printed weren’t always accurate, so a few folks got to places where the author they were looking for hadn’t a clue that they were supposed to be, and vice versa… yep, it happened to me, too. They had me on panels I didn’t realize I’d be on and times when I was supposed to be on a flight, stuff like that, but we worked it out as best we could. The adaptive solution was for me to just run faster, LOL, to where I found out I was supposed to be. This year they had some staffing changes, I later found out.

But the one thing I will say is, the DragonCon staff is wonderful, the people are really nice, and this convention is staffed by an “all volunteer” effort that runs better than our government at times—so I ain’t mad at ‘em. I had a blast there and the panels were a LOT of fun. Got to see some fellow authors who I admire and love their work, so it was all good. Then there’s always Glennis at the Missing Volume Bookstore (out of Miami), who comes up annually, hosts me at her booth, and treats me like family—BIG HUG, lady. She helped in guiding me through the schedule changes posted on The Daily Dragon, along with Wyman—thank you both! I’m just sorry that I missed Brian, Roxy, Sharon, and Jeanette (I have Roxy and Sharon’s addresses, but Jeanette and Brian, please send me your addresses and I’ll be sure you get book plates—my apologies for the scheduling snafus!)

However, where the real crazy fun began was when the combo Atlanta/NYC/Detroit Street Team showed up at the 4pm Friday afternoon werewolf panel, led by Madame President LaShonda, aka “Quick” via cell phone (she was held up in traffic, but on the move like a true Guardian.) We ran out of the werewolf panel, cutting up and headed over to the CNN Center where we met the fantastic Walden’s Books Manager, Anna—cool people! She was so accommodating, and even delivered a message from my good friend and sister author, Lissa Woodson (no, girl, I did not keep my tailbone home, ha ha ha!) We had a LOT of fun up in the mall and then took the party to McCormick and Schmidt’s Seafood Restaurant, where we just fell out at the one-liner’s zinging across the table, and basically turned the place out.

I’m telling, I’m telling, ooohhhhweee, I am telling, LOL! These folks had me laughing from the time we all connected until well after I got on my flight. “Trouble” and “Mo’ Trouble,” who might remain nameless, kept me in stitches—you can’t go to DragonCon and walk the floors with scantily clad, beer-drunk conventioneers all around bumping into you with Street Team making all sorts of allegories to other characters in the VHL series and not laugh. Merciless, I tell you!

But when we got to the Shrine of the Black Madonna (an off site event the next day), whew! They outdid themselves. First off, they had these goodie bags for the raffle filled to the brim with cool stuff, the bags custom printed with the VHL characters’ tattoos, and even the ribbons that tied the bags closed were specialty printed with logos and whatnot. They went all out—notepads and magnets, all sorts of stuff that was sooo cool, I was like a little kid and wanted everything, too, ha ha ha!

They super-surprised me with a BLACK Box with a silver clasp—oh, my goodness… (as in, “Carlos’s black box”)… velvet lined with a huge, diamond-like crystal paperweight engraved with an etching that deemed me a Neteru Queen, presented by Street Team Warriors… there are NO WORDS! (The Queen? I was floored!)

It is so beautiful, THANK YOU, Bless You all for that lovely piece that I will forever cherish. It is on my writing desk—I’m looking at it now as I type this blog. Absolutely gorgeous and so very thoughtful. It has Damali’s and Carlos’s Adinkra symbols etched into it as well. Plus they hooked a sistah up with a “Queen” Street Team t-shirt (that I immediately put on the next day), with a very cool refrigerator magnet that had all of the weekend events on it, and some fabulously scented bath products and candles (sigh… Cain, where are you—not the crazy version—I’m talking about your fine, old school self before you lost your mind… hmmm… can I conjure up one of those, I wonder? Muse, Muse, are you listening? LOL!)

The gift basket was awesome, folks, only dimmed by your bright, shining, spirits! LaShonda, Michelle, Remy, Rayne, Alicia, Adrienne, Glenn, along with honorary Atlanta Street Team member, Shaun (we’ve gotta fix that to make you permanent, smile), each person made all the folks who came to The Shrine feel welcomed and contributed to raising the excitement and the bar on the questions. I also bow to Sister Ewa, who always hosts us with such hospitality at her book store… you, dear sister, are a gem.

So, did we have a blast up in The Shrine? You’d betta know it! All chairs were filled, we hung out for 3 hours, and it got rowdy, questions flying, hoots and hollers as we got down into some issues about love, sex, death, and redemption. Lawdy B, it was a fun afternoon! Then they took me to Paschal’s in SW Atlanta and feed a woman half to death… yams, mac & cheese, collard greens, pork chops (I ain’t gonna lie, my Street Team brother influenced me—I had originally ordered a seafood platter, then Glenn ordered, and I changed my order to, “What he’s having,” LOL!) From there, we hurried back to the downtown hotels, where LaShonda, Alicia, Adrienne, Glenn, Remy, and Rayne did some fancy footwork and hooked up the food in the Hyatt suite for the Throwdown like they were professional caterers (and/or the Mob)—dang, the went gansta, LOL! THANK YOU for making sure that event went to Hoyle, too… Street Team was representing hard to be sure nothing fell through the cracks.

Folks who showed through ate their fill, Quick busted out the mind-stumping trivia, and the baskets and bags were beautiful (thank you Champagne for the baskets!) I also want to thank Wez for coming and bringing his always positive vibes (Glenn has blackmail pics, though, ha ha ha) and Missy for coordinating the t-shirt sales and basket raffle that will ultimately go to The American Diabetes Foundation via DragonCon’s charity efforts.

By the time everyone left, we were all dragging, faces hurting from laughing so hard, and we were still dancing to the music that mix-masters Alicia and Adrienne provided by iPod—Jill Scott’s “Hate on Me,” and the serious hip hop gospel, “I Want It All Back,” became theme music for the night, LOL… and then they broke it down to Mo-Town (Motor City, Detroit Street Team was in da houze cuttin’ up with NYC team, uh huh, we heard y’all)… literally doing the Four Tops and Temptations’ moves across the floor until I couldn’t breathe. Oh, yeah, we got stupid up in there while eating chicken wings and cheese cake—don’t ask… I felt it the next day like a bad child who ate too much at a carnival, but still had to head out to the Decatur Book Festival.

Now, mind you, I had done Decatur on Friday afternoon before I saw the Street Team, to speak to about 200 high school students. That was wild and fun, and even funnier—but I had to tailor my comments to the underage audience. However, on no sleep, and too many chicken wings and Southern food under my belt, by the time I got to the 200+ folks in the Decatur conference center in the Holiday Inn, on a panel with fellow paranormal authors, the thought of behaving myself had long fled with the theme music from the previous night. Yep, you guessed it; I cut up and laughed on the panel till I wiped my eyes. The good news is, I managed not to offend anyone, and since LaShonda and Michelle didn’t take off their Street Team t-shirts or abandon me, I must have stayed close enough to the edge of the envelope on a Sunday afternoon not to shame them too terribly bad, LOL!

Side note, Decatur is a very, very pretty little town—a Southern SoHo, with quaint shops, good international mix of food, and quiet, clean streets. They said 75,000 attended this event over the three days of the festival—who knew Atlanta was such a literary Mecca? I learned something new to me (ok, I confess, I’m slow on some stuff), but it was really a nice event. This year was their second annual, so if they do it again, try to make it. It’s worth it. The great happenstance for me was, I bumped into funny lady and sister author, Carmen Green, and my girl, sister author, Carlah Fredd. Small World! We go all the way back to early Romance Slam Jam conferences and BET days writing together, dang, I missed them—so Decatur was good just for that alone, then add the wonderful new people I met and it was a fantastic day!

I will tell you that it was with a wistful sigh that I left my Street Team family and sister authors to have a quick dinner then ride back to the airport with the author escort (an interesting woman, by the way, who’d lived all over the world. I wanna be like Laura when I grow up—had a GREAT convo with her about all things political.) Oddly, my flight was very uneventful, wasn’t crowded, and my bags came down the shoot on time. It was a first, and maybe a little travel karma for the last debacle was involved. But I got home without incident, dropped my bags, hugged my daughter, turned a blind eye to the condition of my home, and crashed. It took a full 24 hours to recover and get my biorhythms back to a daytime wake state and a nighttime sleep state—because I’d been going round the clock for almost a week.

It was well worth it, though. Each year when I get out and tour, see faces that I can finally put together with screen names, or meet completely new friendly faces… that is one of the BEST parts of doing what I do—meeting wonderful people! Again, I have to thank you all for that. It makes the being away from home and on the road feel like popping around to multiple family reunions, you know? There’s a really cool element to that, and I appreciate every minute of it.

Next year, I know that I may not be able to make some of these events—for good, happy reasons—I have a daughter who’s a high school senior and this full calendar year she gets full fledge “Mommy time,” with senior prom, graduation, college visits, et al, God willing. But we, the Street Team and I, are already talking about making that up by having one huge blow out event, or better stated, extravaganza, to coincide with the end of the series in 2009. We’ll get that info up and out very early (a year in advance) so folks can plan… but in the meanwhile, I know one thing for sure, LOL, I’d better get back to writing now that I’ve played, or else you all are gonna be mad at me if a book slips it’s scheduled release, ha ha ha!

Have a wonderful, fantastic September. Me—hey, I’m like that Staples commercial… kids in Philly go back to school right after Labor Day! Yaaay! It’s a MOST WONDERFUL time of the year, LOL!

BIG HUG and Much Love & Light always, Leslie!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 4th, 2007 at 9:54 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.