RWA Photos

I had a great time last week at the RWA conference in Orlando.  It’s a wonderful opportunity to meet other authors, readers, and to catch up with my editor and others from Berkley.  And I love going to the workshops!  Julia Quinn’s workshop on dialogue contains tons of good advice, and Anne Stuart’s workshop titled “Shitty First Drafts” is both hysterical and informative.

Here are a few photos from the conference:

Me and Andrea Williamson of the Romance Dish at the literacy book signing

Me and author Beth Kery (far left) with the Romance Dish ladies after dinner Tuesday night

Me and Buffie Johnson of the Romance Dish

Dinner Thursday night-- (clockwise) myself, Lisa Childs, Pamela Palmer, Kelly Young, Holli Bertram, and Colleen Gleason

My spot at the literacy signing. Sold out all my copies of Something About You!

Me at the Literacy Signing

A surprise guest who joined myself, Beth Kery, and the Romance Dish ladies for dinner

The view from my hotel room. Not bad, huh?

Speaking of the literacy signing, if you haven’t seen it yet, be sure to check out the music video that Sarah over at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books put together.  Of course, I’m one of the “blooper” authors and apparently can’t lip synch worth a darn, but the video is fabulous.

Beyond that, the RITA awards were great (man, the Golden Heart winners made me teary-eyed), and Sherry Thomas cracked me up with her RITA acceptance speech for thanking her husband for taking their two children out of the house for twelve days while she did a frantic rewrite of her award-winning book, Not Quite a Husband.  Nora Roberts, not surprisingly, gave a very motivating key note speech where she said that while writing can be hard, romance writers “eat the hard for breakfast”.  I think I’m going to slap that on a post-it note and stick it to my laptop.

So that’s my (admittedly very brief) summary!

New Blog Design

Oh, imagine that–I changed the design of my blog again.  I think the pink in the previous style was starting to bug me.  Let’s see how this one sits for a few days.  : )

Now off to work on my RWA post!

Back from RWA–more coming soon

Hey everyone!  Just a quick post to say that I’m back from the RWA conference in Orlando and had a blast!  I have a few photos, and will post those soon, but today is crunch time: my goal is to turn in the revisions for A Lot Like Love by the end of the day.  The finish line is in sight…

More to come soon!

Off to the RWA conference!

Tomorrow morning, I’m off to the RWA conference in Orlando!  For those of you attending the conference, or in the Orlando area, here’s where you can find me:

Wednesday, July 28, 5:30-7:30pm
**Booksigning open to public
Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort
1500 Epcot Resorts Boulevard
Lake Buena Vista, FL 32830

Friday, July 30, 3:00-4:30pm
Berkley booksigning
(for conference attendees only)

And of course I’ll be around and about, attending workshops, mingling, and hanging out with readers and authors.  Hope to see some of you there!

Winner–Top Ten Movie Contest

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Top Ten Movie Contest!  There was such a great turnout, and I had a blast reading all your picks!! Many easily could’ve been on my list:  Goodwill Hunting, The Shawshank Redemption, Ever After, Beauty & the Beast–too many for me to name.

So without further ado, the winner of the $25 gift card is. . .

JODER!

Joder, please email me at info@juliejamesbooks.com and let me know whether you would like a gift card to Amazon, Borders, or Barnes & Noble.

For those of you who left comments over at Beth, Stacy, and Lea’s blogs, be sure to check out whether you’re a winner there.  Big thanks again to Beth for thinking of this contest–we’ll definitely have to do it again next summer.

Happy reading, everyone!