I will have more pictures, I swear. I just have to upload them off my camera. I am going to "lift" pictures from the Buzz Girls and Christina Arbini to tell about my conference highlights!
I spent the first four days in SFO with my best friend from college, Krish Amin (now Dalal). We've known each other for over 10 years now and we did what we do best: gossip and shop. Together we hit every single store you can think of: Macys, GAP, Zara, H&M, etc etc etc....all the while catching up on the latest news and gossip from both of our lives.
Fun!
The conference took off with a bang with the attending Buzz Girls (me, Heather, Marley, Simone and Tera) having an impromptu pow-wow with the gorgeous Wendy Toliver at the Librarians Tea to discuss strategy for our panel. Happily this discussion took all of five minutes before we resumed our usual Buzz Girl topics: gossip, food, shopping, boys.....(are we seeing a pattern here?)
Then it was time for my VERY FIRST Literacy Booksigning. I had tons of friends stop by to say hi, including the lovely Nadine Dajani, Anne Van, Heather Davis, and many many others. It was SUCH an honor to be signing books in a room with authors I adore and respect like the Buzz Girls, Nora, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Jane Porter...the list goes on.
The next morning, I arrived at the hotel bright and early and attended some workshops and the Welcome Lunch with some rather quesitonable looking chicken. I instantly trade up for the veggie option (lasagna....yummy!).
Then came the highlight of the whole trip: The Buzz Girls "Building Buzz in YA" panel. All the Buzz Girls spoke about our experiences with marketing our books with Wendy Toliver moderating. I had a BLAST. We always have such a good time together and this was no exception. The hour just flew by as we dished about the industry, sex in YA (pretty intense stuff), age ranges, marketing techniques (blogs, school visits, book launches, etc).
I think the panel was a huge success with over 70 guests and quesitons until the end. We also did giveaways of ALL of our books, with Heather Davis doing a "gift certificate" of her April 2009 release of NEVER CRY WEREWOLF. Fun!
I then attended the workshop of Marley Gibson and the lovely Elaine Spencer of the Knight Agency where they dished about agent/client communications. Great stuff!
That night was the PASIC reception where Heather and I attended and scmoozed with some old friends like Caridad Ferrer and the unflappable Jennifer Jackson.
We met up with the Tiaras of Seattle (Christina, Kelli, Shannon, Serena, Carolynn, and Erin) and then it was time to crash for the night.
Friday was a day of workshops-workshops-more workshops. I learned a ton of stuff about character building, plot strenghtening and at the end of the day, I was ready to stop with the learning. I attended a fantastic dinner @ Zingari with the Chicago North Girls to celebrate Simone Elkeles's RITA Nom. We were laughing so loudly people from OTHER tables were coming over to ask to join our party....awesome!
I then attended the Harlequin Party where I got a chance to see the lovely Nora, Brenda Novak, Tera Lynn Childs, Marley Gibson and many many others. Above is the dessert buffet, Tera doing her thing, and post-party where I am grabbing my bag and heading back to Krish's place for the night.
Saturday was Blake Synder's SAVE THE CAT talk (my favorite of the conference) where I learned just HOW much work I have left to to on my current WIP URBAN MYTHOLOGY.
We had our Buzz Girl Lunch at the fantastic King of Thai (cheap and FAST!) and then rushed back for the Agent Cartel workshop. That evening we did a dinner with the Tiaras of Seattle at Mel's Diner before everyone retreated to their rooms to get pretty for...
The GH/RITA Award ceremony. It was a gorgeous ceremony with the extremely elegant Heather Davis presenting the GH for Best YA book.
So, that is a very short version of my conference highlights. I look forward to hearing everyone else's conference stories and seeing pictures (that I can steal!)
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Dona Sarkar-Mishra
HOW TO SALSA IN A SARI
SHRINK TO FIT
both out now!
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10 comments:
Dona and all the Buzz Girls~it was wonderful seeing many of you during the conference :). As always, you ladies looked lovely. And, Dona, I'm SO glad you were able to join us at Zingari!!!
My, my, my head is spinning with thoughts of all I missed. Thanks for all these pictures and updates...and so glad you got quality shopping in, Dona!
wow, i wish i could have gone to the conference, it looked fabulous! what a chance to see so many authors and hear about all the books!!!
Had a great time with you, as usual, Dona! :-)
Who wants to tell about what happened as we were leaving King of Thai? LOL!!!
Simone? Heather?
Marilyn: CONGRATS again on your big sale, and I cannot wait to see the cover of ACCORDING TO JANE!
Tina, Jennifer, Christina: I so cannot wait till next year!
Oh gosh, post King of Thai story...we saw a robber! He ran out of Macys clutching a bottle of cologne right in front of us and took off down the street.
Hilarious.
Oh, what a blast! Thanks for the recap, Dona. I can't wait to see you next year.
Good wrap-up, Dona. It was a great time having most of the hive together. And yes, we saw a real-life robber! He was stealing perfume from Macy's and running with pumping arms like a cartoon character. I shouted, "Stop! Robber!" and no one did anything. Except the buzz girls who shouted along with me. Ah, big city life.
hugs to all,
Heath
You all did SUCH a great job at the Creating Buzz workshop. It was wonderful (as usual) to see you. :)
I only yelled for people to stop the robber because I thought he stole Heather's purse...I wouldn't necessarily have put my life on the line not knowing if the guy had a gun if I knew it was about a perfume bottle.
(Heather informed me later that if he'd stolen her purse I would have seen her run after him)
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