RWA Conf?

L.Jones said:

anyone reporting in from there this weekend? Can anyone point me to someone blogging about it, etc?

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There are a ton of people tweeting about it throughout the day (and night!). Follow the Twitter hashtag #rwa10. You almost feel like you're there.

Smart Bitches has also been blogging about it.

I was there! This was my first time and I am an unpub, so I found it EXTREMELY useful. Of course Orlando in August is approximately the same temperature as the surface of the sun, so that was a tad miserable. But Nora Roberts keynoted, and had an informal "chat with Nora" session. She was amazingly down to Earth. Jane Ann Krentz is one of my favorites and she also keynoted and had two sessions. I awestruck to be able to attend sessions held by some of the people I consider "names" in the field - Brenda Novak, Vicki Lewis Thompson, Linda Howard, etc. Not to mention all the authors you meet at the signings. I shook hands with some of my favorites, AW's own Stacia Kane of course, Anya Bast, Cindy Gerard. It was fun and I learned a lot.

I'm planning on going to NYC for next year's.

My biggest disappointment: no juicy gossip! (Or maybe I was hanging out at the wrong bar .) I think everyone was so pleased that the con ran as smoothly as it did, given the venue change, that the annual romance-politics-blows-up-in-fireball never happened!

Anyone else find it preternaturally calm this year?

I'm a newbie and went to my first conference on Orlando. So I don't know a thing about the politics and I really don't want to know. I want to work on perfecting my own craft and getting better (and getting published!!!)

Now with that said, I must say how I was surprised at how many people were shocked that the conference was so smoothly. It's Disneyworld. They host a conference or twenty conferences every day. I kept wanting to sneak over to the Swan more and investigate the Secret Service conference going on over there. But I never seem to find time to go find that conference (or maybe they kept there's so secret that I would have to start opening random doors?!?)

I've been in a Disney wedding. I've been to Disney conferences. I guess I've been to Disney too many times. Disney knows how to host. So if you ever need a last minute change, they know exactly what to do. So everyone's surprise kind of shocked me... I kept saying but it's Disneyworld.

I think most of the 'surprise' about how smoothly it went is due more to the last-minute switch of venues when the Nashville hotel flooded. RWA is one massive conference with a lot to coordinate and the folks in charge did a stellar job of pulling in together into a seqmless operation. No doubt because they had the Disney experts to help.

Plus there have been a couple of conferences that went...well, let's just say less than smoothly.

I had a blast!!! Everything from the arrangements by Disney to the help from the RWA staff (Stefani is a magician!!!) was wonderful!

I attended Shameless' workshop and was quite impressed! Girlfriend is a genius concerning psychology. I will be purchasing some of her books since I didn't win any.

ramarks said:

I attended Shameless' workshop and was quite impressed! Girlfriend is a genius concerning psychology. I will be purchasing some of her books since I didn't win any.

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THANKS!!! You're so sweet!!! I'm thrilled you liked the workshop, but sorry you didn't win a book.