Our feet are swollen, our luggage is probably too heavy, and we’re all physically exhausted with very happy, relaxed brains. RT 2016 is coming to a close. We’ve recorded a podcast as we did last year, and it’ll be up next week (I hope). But before that, here are some highlights!
First, we met SO MANY people who said they read the site every day, listen to the podcast every week, and had to tell us about a book they discovered here. THANK YOU! That is the best compliment, and we loved putting faces to screen names and squeeing about books in person.
And now, images! Please note: those using screen readers, I have done my best to explain what the hell is going on but sometimes it makes as much sense visually as it does verbally, which is to say, no sense at all.
Also: A Rogue in Texas is $1.99 as I type this – woo!
AND! Mad About the Marquess is ALSO on sale for $3.99!
The hotel area and the convention area were VERY far apart. On one hand, that meant the convention area had rooms of various sizes and a ballroom big enough to hold the massive book signing on Saturday without everyone present feeling cramped and overheated. On the other hand – it was a LONG walk. I did 200% of my 8000 step goal every day while I was here, and at one point walked 8+ miles going from my room to the convention floor.
That said, I also think that every blister is an additional 500 calories allowance per day, so all that walking helped offset, for example, the Hash House a Go-Go chicken and waffles, which arrive stacked on a plate about 2 feet high with a knife and a large spear of rosemary embedded in the tower of food.
We hosted a Reader Recommendation Party on Thursday morning, and it was so much fun. Each of us had brought two recommendations (except for RedHeadedGirl, who brought 3 because Poldark) to share with everyone who attended. Then we went around the room taking recommendations from the readers who attended. Not only was there Good Book Noise® but there was Good Book Gasp, and the very subtle but equally powerful of people clicking their pens to write the title and author down immediately. Luckily, I brought “Smart Bitches Read Romance” notebooks for folks to record the names of the books wanted to read.
And there were raffle prizes, too! We gave away copies of our recommendations (thank you to Avon for providing some of our prize books!) and gift cards from AllRomance (thank you!). We also had stickers of The Ladies and an Activite Steel watch provided by Withings – which was PERFECT since we walked a LOT. All of us enjoyed that hour tremendously, and we want to do it again next year. So if Atlanta is on your schedule for RT 2017, we hope you’ll join us!
Thank you to everyone who attended – including Lynda aka FishWithSticks, who insisted on a picture with all of us:
Team @SmartBitches!(L-r) @geekgirlinlove @ElyseIndeed me Sarah @redheadedgirl & @_ImAnAdult doing her best sexy pose pic.twitter.com/ruXHYIEDJK
— Lynda the Guppy (@FishWithSticks) April 15, 2016
At the Chicago North Spring Fling in 2014, the speakers received a custom-made card game, Cards Against Romance Tropes. I’m not sure if it’s ever been made available for sale, but I’ve brought my set to RT for two years now. This year was the first time we all managed to get in a room and play together. I might have to organize a few game nights next year because there were a lot of people on Twitter who wanted to play along with us!
Also we’d like this to be a book title very soon:
Due to the magic of the alphabet, I signed next to author KC Wells, whose book covers made people do a lot of double and triple takes as they walked by.
Thank you to everyone who came to say hi to me at the signing. Huge treat: I got to sign a paper edition of my novella, Lighting the Flames, which I’d never held in my hands before. My heart was racing and I had to make myself take deep breaths before I inscribed it. Bonus squee: it had been purchased at The Ripped Bodice bookstore!
But there was one person with whom we would not have been able to navigate the RT conference. This person guided us with determination and a gentle hand, a bleached goatee and a ubiquitous countenance that showed us the way at every turn. So we must take a moment to acknowledge our guiding star, Guy Fieri.
Guy Fieri is our shepherd. We shall not want.
He inviteth us to lie down after green guacamole.
He leadeth us to the lavatory, he guides us to soft tortillas.
He guides us in the paths of beige filigree to the convention center for his name’s sake.
Yea though I walk through the miles of the conference hallways, I shall fear no blisters
Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of diarrhea, I shall not fear Flavortown.
For Guy is with me. He will guide me through the river, sorry, the Rio. He will comfort me.
Surely goatees and mercy shall follow us all the days of our lives.
And we will dwell in the house of romance and Fieri forever.
Well, we’d like to. But we can’t. We have to go home. We hope you enjoyed your trip to RT if you were here, and if not, we hope you can join us next year in Atlanta!
Note to self: people with short arms should not take selfies.
Romant
Lovely to put faces to names!
Sarah – cute haircut!
Thank you!
The coat (historical name redingote) that Eizabeth Essex is wearing is THE ACTUAL redingote in the cover picture. (I shot the cover images for her…and she was in studio) just as an aside.
Lovely post!!
I so want to come to RT next year. But next year happens to be the year when Worldcon is in Helsinki (Yay!) which is just a short flight from Stockholm. And I am not sure if I can afford big cons the same year.
Well. It is a long time until next RT.
@Mikaela We can totally do a bitchery meetup in Helsinki! Even if it’s just the two of us. 🙂
All the tweets and pics made me just a tad envious, while I was perfectly happy to enjoy RT Las Vegas vicariously from afar… Glad you guys had a blast!
@ms bookjunkie: That would be fun! 🙂
@Mikaela: AS IT SO HAPPENS.
Amanda and I will be in Stockholm in June.
Sonali Dev’s book is SO BEAUTIFUL. I tend to buy e-books these days, but that cover is calling out to be owned.
Sonali Dev has to be the sweetest woman I’ve ever met in my life. She was just wonderful. I want to buy everything she’s written just because she was so awesome.
And I kinda want to meet up with @redheadedgirl just to make a better (third) impression. Caroline Linden and I were talking about how cool she is today.
I will admit, I expected more of a house-frau look from Sarah, but her haircut is just awesome and hip. Also, I expected Carrie S to be much taller….not sure why.
It was cool matching names with faces. At least now I won’t feel so lost when I listen to a podcast that has all the bitches. (Side note: I don’t think my small children had ever heard me say that word until I called my husband on speakerphone and announced that I’d seen all of you at a workshop. “You saw the who?” “The BITCHES!” …oops.)
Lovely, lovely pics! And you had me laughing so hard with the Guy Fierí prayer! Amazing tatoos, girls. I loved everything about this article. Thank you so much for sharing!!!
Looks like it was fun! I hope you all made very good choices.
So nice meeting you at RT! I snagged one of your stickers at the Book Rec party, and discovered it fits perfectly on the back of my phone! (Now hubby & I won’t get our phones mixed up!)
“Guy Fieri is our shepherd. We shall not want.
He inviteth us to lie down after green guacamole.”
I’m dying! 🙂
My reaction to this post: pure unadulterated envy.
Also I am making wine bottle labels with my book cover TODAY.
True story: we told my husband’s parents that I was 3 months pregnant at Passover in 2005 by bringing the Kosher wine and pasting copies of my sonogram over all the wine labels. My MIL: “Why are there sonograms on all the wine bottles?!” I was lucky she didn’t break one by dropping it when she screamed.
Wine bottles make GREAT promotion of anything!
There’s a print version of your book??? I will have to remember to grab one in LA before I head back home! It was great to meet all the Smart Bitches. You all were SO wonderful. ‘Til Sydney! 😉
Saturday at RT was amazing. Next year I want to attend the whole thing. So much swag, so many book, so many awesome people. I’m going to treasure my Smart Bitches notebook. Not sure if I said anything coherent when I stopped by your table but it was really great meeting you Sarah!
I love the book tattoos! Why did no one share those before? (Or did you on one of the mediums I don’t follow?)
Can we do a whole post with people who have book body art? Maybe someone has a unicorn pooping farts with a streaming hair/purple-eyed heroine tattoo?
(I’m body-art-less, but admire it on others … those book tattoos were the first I think I might possibly consider, but I know I’ll chicken out. Still, I’d like to see more.)
@Anna Richland: we did indeed! Here and Here!
@Elise: It was lovely to meet you, too and you were entirely coherent!
The Guy Fieri verse is the best thing I have ever read.
looks like you had a great time!
I loved all the photos people took of/with my poster! And I will second a comment above that Sonali Dev is one of THE sweetest people I have ever met. Who has the most gorgeous covers ever. I was fortunate to be on a panel with her, and was mesmerized listening to her talk about her books.
And Sarah, as always, is beautiful and fabulous. 🙂
OMG!!! All of this!!! And I didn’t even realize how Guy WAS leading the way, like the romance reader pied piper!! It was AWESOME to meet all of y’all!!! Can’t wait till next year!! 🙂
P.S. I about died when SB Sarah gave me a hug becaus I told her SBTB is the only blog I read. Y’all are the best! And I’m so happy I could put Smart Bitch stickers on my rolling cart. Great day!! ❤️❤️