I am finally somewhat recovered from my first-ever trip to RWA Nationals in Washington, DC and I couldn’t believe how much fun I had.

Tuesday: My sister and I flew in from Chicago and it was not a happy flight for me—the last half hour it felt as if we were on a rumble strip.

Fortunately, I recovered quickly and we ate dinner at the Lebanese Taverna—eggplant, lamb, lamb meatballs, and something with chickpeas. We stayed in the vintage Wardman Towers part of the Marriott with the crystal chandeliers, gold-framed mirrors and fancy marble-topped dressers in the corridor. We tried to play Antiques Roadshow to guess if they were real antiques or not, but we thought the staff might object to us pulling the furniture out from the wall or flipping over drawers.

Wednesday: Up and out to the Washington and Lincoln Memorials. As an Illinois girl, Lincoln has always been my favorite president. I had forgotten how big the statue of Lincoln is. If you haven’t seen Night in the Museum: Battle for the Smithsonian, you’ll get a laugh. The atmosphere in the memorial is very quiet despite the mob of people.

The Literacy charity signing was that evening, and it was packed. I sat between Susan Donovan, who writes romantic comedy, and Lucienne Diver, who now writes YA vampire love in addition to her literary agenting. Somewhere in the crush was a Washington Post reporter, who noticed MY SEXY GREEK SUMMER and mentioned it in her article on the conference. Thanks, Art Department!

Thursday: Janet Evanovich had a motivational keynote: there is no such thing as writer’s block, just lazy writers. Fortunately, I had an excuse not to run out and write because the Blaze Authors’ lunch was next.

I had such a great time at the Blaze lunch hosted by senior editor Brenda Chin. I sat between Brenda Jackson and Karen Anders and across from Jill Monroe and Kathleen O’Reilly. We talked business but also about interesting things like college, medical treatment during the fall of the Soviet Union (you’d be better off with a witch doctor), families and home. I just wished we’d had more time to visit since everybody is so interesting.

Friday: I met with my editor Kathryn Lye and we had a lovely visit. Once I finish my current project, KNOWING THE SCORE (3/10), I’ll be working on a proposal for a new Blaze series.

The evening brought the Harlequin party, and the cab driver took us to the wrong Ritz-Carlton. We walked into this very quiet Friday night hipster bar in our cocktail dresses and knew something was wrong. They sent us back across town to the other Ritz-Carlton, and we knew we were in the right place when we heard a steady thump-thump-thump coming up from the downstairs ballroom.

The party was a blast in every sense of the word—chocolate fondue fountain, huge cake and every bar station had its own decade theme—the sixties had whiskey stone sours and the 2000s had appletinis and cosmopolitans. The DJ played a great mix of dance tunes and the whole room danced to “I Will Survive” and “Thriller”, complete with claw action and everything.

Saturday: RITA Awards! Anne Stuart did a great job emceeing the ceremony with plenty of jokes and movie clips. At the reception, YA RITA award-winner Rosemary Clement-Moore let me rub her RITA for luck. Maybe next year in Nashville!

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 25th, 2009 at 12:01 am and is filed under Marie Donovan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.