RT Booklovers Convention Day 3:

Today I thought I’d check out a couple of Young Adult Workshops, starting with one that sported a title that made me grin: Who Runs the World? Girls!  It was as fun as the title suggested; imagine a panel of six strong, decisively opinionated women chatting about powerful women characters in TV, movies, and books. Throw in lots of laughs, some passion for equality, and cheers for girls coming into their power, and include a raucous room with great participation, and you have a pretty good picture of my morning. Yay, women, go! Girl Power!
Next it was rush to get in line and wait with a hundred other enthusiastic book addicts for our chance to speed date 10 authors as they moved from table to table for the Sweet, Sassy, Spicy Author – Reader Meet & Greet. Throw in a candy bar, mimosas and yummy desert shots and you have a kickin’ party.

On another note, I have a great roommate, Amanda McIntyre. She’s fun, zany, and a hybrid author, published for many years with a traditional press, and just recently self-published. She puts up a pretty good argument that writers should test the waters of both worlds of publishing to see what works best for them. Soon after meeting we got talking and she told me about her Victorian romantic thriller called “The Dark Seduction of Miss Jane,” a title that sounds so fascinating I popped over to Amazon right then and got the eBook. More good news, the eBook, and three others she has out, are free through this Sunday.

“This (RT) is a great place to meet readers and network with industry professionals, the RT Booklovers convention is a mecca for readers,” Amanda says, and since this is her twelfth year at Rt she’d know. She adds, “if you love to read, you need to make plans to attend this particular conference at least once just to experience it.” Hear hear, I couldn’t agree more!

Kathie Firzlaff is a guest blogger who lives in Salt Lake City and is an aspiring writer.