Hanging Out With the Peeps at RT

by Allison Pang

Sadly, I have no pictures yet...but...the main purpose of this post was just to point out how terrific it is to be able to hang out with so many like-minded people. Over the last several years, I've "met" a lot of people online - writers, agents, bloggers, readers - and so often even though I might only know them via an avatar or a twitter name, I still feel like I got to know them. (Or at least a facet of them.)

My last RT was two years ago. I was a shy novice with no idea of wtf I was doing. Jeffe and Liz took me under their wing and walked me through the scary process of pitching and schmoozing and dancing and late night hot-tubbing. It was awesome to have people accept me like that and to be so open with their knowledge of the industry.

This time around it's a little different. I'm a published author, which gives me a slightly different perspective, but some things are still the same - namely the openness that everyone seems to have. Everywhere I looked, I found someone I "knew" from online and it's wonderful to finally get a face to the name and to hang in the real world a bit.

In some ways conventions are a bit like migrating birds, I suspect. We hang out in our chosen solitary fortresses, writing and reading and blogging and tweeting...only to converge for a few short days of talking shop and hanging at the bars and then *poof*. Dispersal happens and we're back to our virtual domains.

Yesterday was mostly just hanging out at panels and workshops, but I have a couple of Club RT sessions this morning with several of my fellow League of Reluctant Adults authors, so that should be a lot of fun. And it's my first Club RT signing too, so yay for that. :)

And incidentally, even aside from the awesomeness of hanging out with all the writing peeps, I'm going to have lunch with a friend I haven't seen in about 15 or 20 years, and that is quite nice too.