Romance Slam Jam

Wow, taking a brief breather in my hotel room at the moment. RSJ has been nothing but fabulous. Reader sessions, workshops, networking, catching up, trip to the Inner Harbor in Baltimore and now getting ready to go to the mega book signing. The welcome reception was a blast. Everyone including myself in 60s-70s garb, including me in a way too big afro and toting a long stem cig. (cause I remember, momma smoked in the sixties, LOL). Last night we had a pajama party and tonight is the EMMA awards banquet where my book Masquerade is up for two awards. Fingers crossed and good luck to everyone. There are so many talented authors here I an honored to be nominated. Gotta go sign some books but I'll be back.

Wonderful Day

What a wonderful day. Fantastic weather. Sun shining. Dinner out wity my number one man and then sitting in front yard in swing chair with him, holding hands and talking about everything from the weather, to mortages to mosquitoes. Man, I couldn't ask for anything more. Hope everyone had a just as fantastic Resurrection Day as we had. Blessing to all!

Romance Slam Jam

“The Romance Slam Jam grew out of an early desire to recognize, and pay respect to OUR authors, and to celebrate their craft with their avid fans.”

Emma Rodgers, Ashira Tosihwe and Francis Ray gave birth to the ROMANCE SLAM JAM in 1995 in Dallas, Texas, to demonstrate what Nikki Giovanni describes as “The Power, Passion and Pain of Black Love.” (quoted from www.romanceslamjam.org)

On April 27 hundreds of readers and authors (me included) will merge on Baltimore, Maryland for 4 days for fellowship and fun. This is one of the best reader-writer conferences ever. Its not too big and its not too small. It was the Romance Slam Jam conference where I realized there is a whole lot more to writing romance than I ever imagined. I remember the one I attended like it was yesterday. Raleigh-Durham, NC. My first book 'A Walk in the Rain,' had just been released maybe two months before I hit the road with Felicia Mason. I'm not sure if I was more afraid of the fact that I was going to this conference or that the Felicia Mason had invited me to join her on the road trip. It was Felicia's book, Body and Soul that tossed me into the world of African American romance and the desire to write a book. Wow. What a time of my life.

Now, even though the years have ticked by, and I have about 14 titles to my writing credit, my writing has evolved into something wonderful and the readers are as fantastic as ever, I will never stop going to the Romance Slam Jam. My hats off to the readers and authors who paved the way for us. My heartfelt thanks and gratitude.

Watch out Baltimore. Here we come!

Hum drum, me

Well, what is an author to do. I'm not sure which is worse when it comes to getting the job done. That ever present fatigue from having to carry on several lives. The wife, the home maker, the full time job keeper, the author, the nurse, the case manager or this ever present numbness and even more so the inability to get a full nights sleep. I'm thinking of all of the things that are throw at an author, it is the deterents to getting the acutal writing done that has the most effect. What good is it if you can get all of the other facets under control if you can't write for crap because you fingers and hands are numb from the bilateral carpol tunnel that you no doubt got from all of the writing. It really burns my goat when I can't sleep because of the cervical neck issue but I think, no biggie, I'll get up and write and then can't do it because the hands don't want to participate. It's really hard to type when you can't feel the keys and the tiny needle tinging is dancing along your fingers. What's an author to do?