Wednesday, July 25, 2018

RWA 2018

Trying to encapsulate RWA 2018 in Denver into a coherent piece, is hard.  
I went to part of the Newsletter class, but quickly reached my brain saturation point, so left and began making dinner plans.  
My WRW chapter had a breakfast which was awesome but meant a second early morning (Day of YA was an early start too). It was great to see people in one room that we don't always get to hang out with at home.  (In fact, some of our members are distance members.)
I was on duty at the PRO Retreat, which means many things came to me in snippets as I ran to help other committee members.  (I also learned an important lesson about standing more than I needed to.)  But the panels talked about the challenges and joys of entering publishing, remembering to take care of your writer self, letting yourself believe that your writing has worth, and how to push through the doubts.  We also gave out the PRO Mentor of the Year award to Cindy Dees, who talked about the PRO to Published initiative in her chapter, and that a lot of it is the PRO writer letting something hold them back.  
The Golden Heart ceremony meant I got to hear my lovely chapter mate Pintip Dunn speak again as emcee.  And watch lovely folks win awards.  I went and huddled in my room before the RITAs because my feet demanded it.  The RITAs were wonderful, and I have a longer story about the Lifetime Achievement Award Winner speech, that I'm going to break out into it's own post.  I thought the theme of both ceremonies, which was very much how writers and authors support each other was wonderful. I was so, so, glad to be there for it.  
Friday I moderated two sessions, which is in fact a clever way to make yourself go to things.  Jennifer Barnes' discussion of Psychology of Fiction was amazing, as was Robin Covington and Avery Flynn's Professional Jealousy.  
Saturday, I volunteered at the registration desk.  I told a story about that here.  I had a wonderful time and look forward to making my way through the recordings for more.