the best bit :)

I’m back! Did you miss me?

Meant to do some updating from Denver, but the hotel added a new exciting feature where you had to pay for the reportedly free internet access (my computer doesn’t have a wireless or ethernet card right now), so I ended up just answering a bit of email and not paying for too much access. Feh.

Poor Little’s starting to show her age, not so much in the wireless factor as things like her screen lock isn’t working as well anymore, so she pops open, and other small things. None-the-less, I don’t think I can justify replacing her, even if the new Sony Vaio is even smaller and cuter than she is. Well. I’m not sure I really feel like it’s cuter. It’s something to be coveted, but Little’s keyboard’s a better size, and I do love the old girl. Still, poor lil’ thing. :)

Anyway, the conference.

I went, I admit, more for the networking and socializing aspects than the workshops and panels, though those that I went to were as always enjoyable. Anyway, I’ll begin with the absolute highlight of the networking activities, then put the rest in extended entries so as to not to spam the LJ friends list. :)

One of the attending editors was Betsy Mitchell of Del Rey. I’ve been aware of Betsy Mitchell for, I don’t know, at least ten years–she’s one of those editors who gets thanked a lot in dedications and acknowledgements. So, y’know, pipe dream is that Betsy Mitchell would know who I was. Not a chance in hell, but what’s life without dreams?

Friday evening my friend Lee (Margie) Roland, whom I originally met at RMFW in 2002, said, “Let’s sit down with Betsy,” whom she’d met earlier in the day during a workshop. So we went to sit with Betsy, who was charming and said, “Oh! Are we meeting?” when I said I wrote SF/F, and I allowed as how we were, and so all of that was nice. Someone else at the table noticed my yellow “author” ribbon that the conference gave me (they give them to all the authors, not just me!) and asked what books I had out. I said I’d just had my first book, URBAN SHAMAN, published.

And Betsy Mitchell, head editor of Del Rey, said, “Oh! *You’re* the one who wrote URBAN SHAMAN!”

Because I am uber-cool and calm and collected in the face of that sort of thing, I said, “You just made my entire life!”

Turns out she’d been at CascadiaCon/NASFiC (North American Science Fiction Convention, the conference held in the US when Worldcon is held overseas) last week, and Luna had come up at a panel or some such, and people in the audience had mentioned URBAN SHAMAN and told her she needed to read it. She was completely astounded at finding herself sitting next to the writer of that book a week later. It was VERY cool! And she came by the book signing that evening and bought a copy and even had me sign it for her. *silly beam* Isn’t that awesome?

(The next day at our meeting she also said, “Sorry I haven’t read your book yet! I read my trashy romance last night.” I told her I thought I could probably forgive her. *grin*)

Ok, for the rest you can click through, either on the MT click-through on the main page or on the journal entry URL posted on the LJ feed. :)