Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

I’m building a Google Map for RWA’s conference in San Francisco, plotting out 3 and 4 star restaurants, coffee shops (required by law for Sarah to be human), pizza joints, liquor stores, and stuff nearest to the hotel.

View Larger Map

Note: I do not know why Google:maps defaults to Whole Earth view, so zoom in. There’s pizza for cheap eating, coffee, and a few nicer restaurants on there. Any additional recommendations, lemme have ‘em!

Don’t mind me. Nothing to see here. Just testing the category feed by, well, testing the category feed.

What, you want entertainment? Hm. I’m eating dark chocolate with crystallized ginger in it, and it makes me feel like I’m breathing chocolate fire, how’s that? No? Um. Well, ignore me then.

From the “If I Had a Bodrillion Dollars and Free Healthcare” department comes my pondering of a “more better documentary” about romance – one that started at RT and kept going to RWA, The Romance Slam Jam, and some of the more awesome chapter conferences and reader events. Alas, my million has not rolled in so I’m left to dream.

But this month’s letter from RWA President Sherry Lewis reveals her year as “The Face of Romance” - a title that made her cringe, as she is not normally, as she puts it, a “bona fide introvert.” Lewis, who declines all interviews no matter how many times I say “Pbbbblease?” represented RWA at the Public Library Association’s National Conference with Allison Kelley and Stephani Fry (all of whom are very cool, says I) and her experience proves that there’s some genuinely active and eager people out there looking for romance to read (and not necessarily man titty to grope along with it):

So you’re a blogger (hi there!). And you’ve registered for RWA in San Francisco. And you’re nervous about what to expect. Don’t be. It’s fun.

Samantha Graves said to me on the last day of RWA in Dallas, quoting, I believe, Mary Jo Putney, that the convention on the whole is a few thousand introverts pretending to be extroverts for four days. And at the end of the conference, expect to be exhausted. I was.

Now, last year, when I went, I was 8 months pregnant. I gave birth six weeks later. I was, to put it mildly, as big as the sun. So there were a lot of events I missed because I was focused on three things: finding a place to sit, finding food to eat, and finding (ahem) the ladies rooms. Since that’s the basis of my conference experience, I’ll start there.

Suppose you’re curious about what the posse of bloggers have to say at RWA this year, but don’t remember who all is going, much less what the URLs are? Jane from DearAuthor kicked ass and took names and came up with Blog Nationals.com a blog that will scoop the RWA-related content from about 11 or so different sites and compile it in one convenient reading location.

This was all Jane’s idea, and I think it’s spiffy. I contributed two itty bitty things, but the rest is another example of how Jane can make a label maker weep with fear due to her l33t skillz of organization. Yay, Jane!

So once the conference is in full swing, check out the site. We’ll have other stuff going on at our own sites, obviously, but if you’ve got an itchy hankering for RWA Conference news, take a look. And if that itching continues, see a doctor.

ETA: Whoa! The site got hacked! How utterly lame. I’ll let you know when the site is active again.
ETA2: I think we’re back. And utterly badass as usual.

Thanks to Katie, I have a link to the list of authors appearing at the RWA Literacy Signing in San Francisco. Every year the Literacy Signing raises Big Money for a local literacy organization, so bring your wallet and your comfy shoes.

But suppose you’re not going to be there, which is a big bummer. Consider alternate uses for the list: pen name selection! You don’t want to use a pen name that’s too similar to another author’s nom de plume. Granted, this list doesn’t encompass every romance author ever, but there’s plenty on there to give you ideas.

My pen name of choice would be a weird combo of my pet’s names and the porn-star name rule of “street I grew up on,” and I have so many pets I have a name for every subgenre. Ergo Grace Reynolds. Or Oliver Reynolds, if I write mysteries. Or Logan Reynolds if I write, say, Westerns. Or Fukui-san Reynolds if I were to write something Japanese. Or Ohta Reynolds if I write sports books or food commentary. The possibilities are endless!

How did you pick your pen name? What’s your preferred faux name, if you’re not using a writing moniker already? 

Thanks to Bitchery reader Jora, we have a heads up on a cool place to meet the San Francisco readers who might not be attending RWA but would like to meet Bitches in person, and an equally cool place for folks at the conference to meet up and have a drink with us.

Bitching Happy Hour will be Friday 1 August at 3:30 pm at the Thirsty Bear bar, 661 Howard Street. It’s on the Bitchery Food & Drink map of San Francisco if you need a visual or you really dig the street view. They have house brews, wine, and tapas, and since I love two out of three of those things, I am there like merde and mon dieu.

We’ll be gathering, drinking, and eating, and we’re looking forward to meeting you. This is open to anyone who wants to come have a drink with us - we hope you’ll come by! To give us a rough idea as to whether you’re going to duck out of work early and drink with the crazy ladies from this here website, leave a comment please so we can get an estimated head count. See you in a week! 

From the “Holy Shit I Haven’t Even Packed Yet” and the “There Goes My Hopes of Traveling Carry-On Only” department comes Louisa Edwards’ account of pre-conference mishigas at the San Fran Marriott. Honestly, this does not bode well.

So, looking for alternate accommodations that are walking distance from the hotel? Good luck with that. There’s the Four Seasons across the street but if you’re not familiar with the Fo-Sea, every one of those seasons is damn hell holy shit outta your budget expensive. Same with the St. Regis.

If you’re feeling the first stirrings of a need to make backup reservations, there is a Hilton (which is great if you have points, which I do not) and there’s a few other major player hotels a few blocks from the Marriott. There’s also a feature on hotels.com that will allow you to search for hotels using the Moscone center as your home point - which is next door to the Marriott.

Are you already at the Marriott and having a hell of a time? There’s a comment form on the Marriott website, but my best advice to you is to Document Everything. Every thing that goes wrong, every time you see something beyond the pale in terms of service crap badness, WRITE IT DOWN. Name names. The people who do things excellently right? Name them. The people who don’t? Name them, too. Then, send a letter (not an email, a letter) to every person whose name and address you can find in control of the Marriott Corporation. If I have an experience equal to Ms. Edwards’, you can bet I’ll be posting mailing addresses and contact info here. Start with the general manager of the San Francisco hotel, and CC as many people as you can. Document everything that went wrong (if anything did - I’m not usually such a glass-half-full-of-crap person but the initial account is alarming). Because let me be honest with you: RWA’s conference committee spends a buttload of time researching these hotels, and to my understanding the hotels court the conference like broke Regency heroes court rich ingénues. If you’re like me, this is a big chunka what-what out of your budget, and if the hotel isn’t up to snuff, complain. Capital-C Complain.

Note: this is not a diss against RWA. Y’all know I am a fan of the RWA. RWA, you, me, and the rest of us conference folks deserve better than a hotel that isn’t getting the job done in terms of service. So if your conference experience doesn’t get better from the account that’s been linked to, take note. Take copious notes. And complain. Tourism in the US is at a record low. The use of the word “staycation” is in every major publication because people just plain cannot afford travel this year. So? Any hotel and every hotel should be actively courting business, and any problems should be addressed promptly. If that is not your experience, take notes.

(But try not to cross the line in to douchebaggery. Please. As someone who used to work the front desk of a hotel, there’s stating your problems reasonably, and there’s abusive yelling. Please try to stay on the reasonable line, even if the problem isn’t reasonable.)

Item the First: Dost thou know we have zee Twitter? We have zee Twitter. I don’t quite understand the joy of zee Twitter, but I’m going to have some fun with it. If you are at SF, either because that’s where you live, or you’re attending the conference, stay tuned to zee Twitter. I’ll be posting while I’m in SF a trivia question or a secret word. If you’re the first to (a) find me and (b) answer the question or give me the secret password, I’ll have a prize for you in my Big Ass Bag. (No, the bag is not made of actual ass, nor will your prize be ass).

Why am I doing this? Because it’ll be fun, it’ll be a neat way to meet new people, and why not give cool stuff to strangers to make new friends, right? Plus, I get to say “zee Twitter,” like The Giver from Send.com used to say his own name (He was The Giver, from Send.com. Giving was in his blood and muscle tissue) . And I have neat prizes, thanks to Ninth Moon and their very very thoughtful clearance sale.

Item the Second: Remember the accounts from last year of thieving booksellers doing the grab and run at the publisher book signings? And Walt from CuppaCafe among others ranted about it, discussing how to better prevent such crapful behavior again? Yeah. I’m hoping that same crew of ass isn’t around in San Fran, but I have my doubts as to the possibility that assholes won’t be assholes. So, I’ll be keeping my eye out for the crew of shite. If you see it happening, or you can identify the crew of crap what’s swiping the books, let me know.

Item the Third: I’m still adding slowly to the RWA Google Map of Food and Drinks and General Merriment, so stay tuned. And if you have a suggestion, please let me know.

View Larger Map

I am terrible and boring at entries where I tell everything that I did, because it becomes one long string of ‘And then… and then.... and then...’ and your eyes would glaze over. So here’s a small-paragraph recap in no particular order of The First 36 Hours Of RWA.

So tomorrow AM the Today Show segment will air and I’m hoping they use all of us, because Marcella, Kassia, and Jane were outstanding. Marcella batted that interview right out of the park.

Funny part! During the literacy signing, which raised nearly $60,000 in one night, I was walking around with two authors when the film crew from The Today Show approached us. They were looking for two people to pose and gaze up at the ceiling as if they were thinking of George Clooney and Patrick Dempsey. I happened to be standing with, count ‘em one, two people. So if the Today Show airs the segment with two people posing as if they were dreaming of celebrities, one will be Barb Ferrer and the other will be Lisa Kleypas. They were totally good sports about it, and I hope that Today’s uses the segment, because, awesome!

Howdy! If you saw me or Jane from Dear Author, Marcella White Campbell, or Kassia Krozser on the Today Show and are checking out our sites as a result, welcome! Nice to meet you!

As is the standard in tv, where there’s piles and piles of tape but the audience sees about seven or eight inches of it, our segment was probably pretty quick. But we were talking then and are here now to say that the stereotype of romance readers is wrong. Romance readers are smart, erudite, clever, and tired of being dismissed as undersexed, overweight frustrated women. I hope that our enthusiasm and love of romance came across. If you like romance novels as much as we do, we’re glad you’re here.

ETA: There is a link to the video online if you’d like to see it for yourself. My comments after I watched it for the first time are below - click the “more more more” for, well, more more more.

I have to check out of my room today because I am a doofus, but here’s a brief item highlight of yesterday:

1. I filmed an Author Talk segment with Jane from DA, and one of the following things did not happen:
a. I trounced her silly behind in the wall banger competition
b. Jane cracked me up retitling different Author Talk member’s books
c. We made out on film
d. Kresley Cole and Gena Showalter beat me senseless.

Guess which one!

2. I volunteered at the registration desk and ended up helping set up the luncheon instead. But I got to go “backstage” and meet some RWA staff folks who are so cool you can’t even believe it.

3. The Thirsty Bear cocktail party was so awesome, I’m dreaming of the food right now. Readers! Nifty people who read our site! They came! So it was this awesome mix of local reading awesomeness and people from the convention taking a break from the schmooze-fest, and I loved it. Angela James, Zoe Archer, Kate Duffy, and Carrie Lofty have a great idea for some new erotic historicals. Ask them about it - it’s so good lightning will strike.

4. I have to remember for next year that I must buy coffee creamer and ask for a fridge, because I’m all about making my own coffee, but not at all enamored of powdered creamer. So I have to head out in a minute in the hunt for caffeine.

5. The session on Theft of Creative Property that I am moderating is at 11. I’m introducing Jane and Nora Roberts, who really don’t need an introduction, but Nora’s friends and Jane helped me craft a Top Five Little Known Secrets list, which I hope I can use.

6. Jet lag is not my friend. Really. Not in the least. Thank heaven RWA is on the east coast next year. 

This was meant to be posted last night, but it was hung up in the place
where email goes and never comes out.

---

The most powerful RITA moment for me was Jennifer Greene, who won for Best Novella. She told us that
after the story was published, her mother asked her to read her story aloud.
Her mother’s eyesight was failing, and the story was dedicated to her as
part of a Mother’s Day anthology.

When she finished reading, her mother said that having a daughter like her
was the highlight of her life. Ms. Greene said, “I lost her three weeks
later.”

Last night when I sat down to tell Hubby about the RWA Conference, I had to look at my calendar to remember where I was and at what time, because it was all one big exhausting blur. A big, exhausting, happy blur.

But there are a few things that are popping right in the front of my brain, and since I stinketh at writing comprehensive summaries of things, I want to note a few things.

Jill Shalvis said in the comments to the post I wrote about Jennifer Greene’s acceptance speech (which still makes me cry if I think about it) that “Moments like that are what make the Ritas for me.”

Agreed. And it’s larger than that. There is a lot of effort, exhaustion, and sometimes a small amount of drama surrounding RWA National, but moments like that one speak volumes about how extraordinary RWA as a community and an organization is. There are a lot of folks who have problems with it as a whole, and there are surely some things I would love to change or see addressed, but consider the amazing combination of elements that makes up the RWA National convention:

1. It’s a business conference
2. About writing
3. And demystifying the publishing process
4. And examining and educating writers and aspiring authors on writing techniques,
5. and business techniques
6. and marketing techniques
7. and how to schmooze successfully in the bar. (Very Important)
8. It’s a one-stop experience for a lot of aspiring folks, because there’s craft, sales, pitching, research, and marketing advice.
9. It’s a business conference dedicated to the business of writing.
10. Specifically, dedicated to the business of writing romance.
11. And it is—pay attention - this is the really crucial part.
12. Created, run, administrated, directed, supported, and attended by an audience of mostly
13. Women.

During RWA, we had a contest running for an ARC of Marta Acosta’s new book, Bride of Casa Dracula. Then entries in the contest are so damn funny I was wheezing in the hallways as I read them. I’m sure someone thought I had a rather odd repiratory disorder, because I’d be snorting at my phone and giggling.

Marta emailed me with the winners, and asked me to convey the following:

There were so many incredible stories for this contest that I’ve had a really difficult time picking my favorites—and a really fun time reading them aloud to my husband.

The first winner is Emmy for her tragic tale of a marriage that was disastrous from the beginning (husband bailing on wedding night) to it’s ultimate conclusion (pregnant secretary).

The second place is Joanna and the Halloween wedding.  I was laughing so hard I couldn’t finish reading aloud.

The third book goes to Elizabeth Wadsworth for a wedding story that proves that love, sense, and happiness are not mutually exclusive.

And I’ve got an ARC without the title page, so that goes to Miah, for enduring “gaslighting” by a psychotic mother-in-law/seamstress, a theme which comes up in The Bride of Casa Dracula.

Honorable mentions:  WryHag for bravely wading into cold water to save beer.  JennK for “cheese log rolled in corn flakes.” Cellan for “macaroni cross.” Fall from Grace for using “butt wiggle” and “toilet water” together.” JoyKenn for sitting on her wedding cake.  Meagan who suffered for love.  Booklight for a dark and dramatic tale of conspiracy and corruption.  Marsha for giving us a moment of loveliness and grace.  Jackie for playing air guitar at her reception.  Malin and her “shoes make the bridesmaid” tale of terror.  Amanda G. and her patchwork wedding dress. The Rotund for “blue and white satin Civil War recreation gowns.” Amelia for the camouflage wedding gear.” Staple for two left shoes.  Sarah Frantz for her Shakespearean tale of familial sabotage.  Jennifer Armintrout for her story of the demon bitch in mourning.  Collette for sounding the battle cry of the bride:  ““I’m the fucking bride asshole.  I’ll park wherever the fuck I want.”

Thanks to everyone for the wonderful stories!  Please visit my blog next week for some book giveaways.

If you’re a winner (yay!) you can , and I’ll pass them along to Marta. Thanks for playing, y’all. 

Many, many people take photos at RWA. And you’ve seen really, really good ones at other sites, with beautiful folks in ball gowns noshing on all the chocolate in the universe at the RITA reception, authors meeting happy fans, and people queuing up to have books signed at the literacy signing. I don’t have many of those.

What do I have? LOLRWAs. Get ready. They’re terrible. Enjoy!

ETA: I forgot - many of these pictures were taken by Angie James. Thanks Angie!