Even More Award News, World Fantasy Con and some personal WHOOTs!

 The good news keeps on coming!  Huge congratulations to Kira Sinclair and Isabel Sharpe for their Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice nominees TESTING THE LIMITS and SOME LIKE IT HOTTER (Harlequin Blaze)! For a full list of our nominees (The Knight Agency has 17 authors  up!), check out the TKA blog.

A couple of quick personal squees before I move on to pics, etc. from the World Fantasy Convention this past weekend in Arlington, VA…  If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you may already have seen my breathless, tearful OMGing about my Dear Author review for BAD BLOOD.  They’re tough cookies over at Dear Author, and the review, particularly at a time of self-doubt, meant the world to me.  Reviewers, please note: authors are more thankful to you than we can say, though we should certainly try, especially since this is the season for Thanksgiving!  On that note, a huge THANK YOU to Jessica at A Great Read for reviewing and loving BATTLE FOR THE BLOOD, the latest in the Latter-Day Olympians series! I’m humbled!

This leads me into the World Fantasy Convention.  Normally, I take about a zillion pictures that I can post to make you all feel you were there.  Unfortunately, this year my camera, for the most part, stayed in my bag.  I’m not sure I was any more crazy busy than in past years, but there it is.  But I’ll try to paint some word pictures where I lack photos.  First, while Crystal City in Arlington, VA isn’t exactly in the midst of things, it’s a nice, short plane ride from home, which I appreciate immensely after all the traveling I’ve done this year, and the view form my hotel window was pretty great.

But as all con-goers know, we’re not there for the view.  We’re lucky if we get out of the hotel a time or two for meals.  It’s all about the people.  Because of timing, I haven’t been to one of the major sf/fantasy cons, besides DragonCon, which is a madhouse, in a couple of years, which is a crying shame.  Coming to World Fantasy was like coming home.  First, I was able to see three of my fabulous authors, R.S. Belcher (THE SIX-GUN TAROT, THE SHOTGUN ARCANA), Carol Berg (most recently DUST AND LIGHT, which is a current finalist for Best Fantasy in the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Awards) and David B. Coe/D.B. Jackson (oh so many titles, including a new urban fantasy series starting in January 2015 with SPELL BLIND as David B. Coe and the Thieftaker series as D.B. Jackson).  So many other authors who fall along the spectrum from friends to family, including Esther Friesner, Laura Anne Gilman, Meg Turville-Heitz, F. Paul Wilson, Brandy Schillace, Brenda Clough… Oh, look, I did manage two whole pictures!  (On left from L to R: Steven Leigh, Andrew Miller, me, Brandy Schillace, David B. Coe and Ed Schubert; on the right: Esther Friesner in her fabulous pterodactyl sweater and me without one.)

There were also many awesome agents gathered that we had to come up with a word for it.  We settled on a “negotiation of agents,” although my husband says that he always thought a congregation of agents and editors was called a “Happy Hour”.  He’s not necessarily wrong.  Just look at what such a congregation was able to do to the White House:

(Chocolate courtesy of Joshua Bilmes, JABberwocky)

As you can probably tell, a fabulous time was had by all.  There were many productive meetings, many wonderful reunions and so many memorable moments.  I can’t wait until next year!