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Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Recap of the Dreamspinner meetup in Portland, or the Why are you here trip

Spent Friday through Monday in Portland, Oregon, for the DSP author meetup.

First off, I have to say that while Portland is lovely, it's wet. Really wet. I think my girl and I might the only folks on earth who got to the Pacific Northwest and went ahhhh, too green. Too many trees!

Still, we managed to get out and tourist a bit, which I'll revisit in a bit.

Anyhoodles, Friday morning we went to the opening talk with the owner and head editor of DSP. I'd never met either of them, and they're a hoot. Everyone knew who BA was, thanks to Terms of Release coming out a month or so ago. Me, though, no one could quite place. I have a short out with DSP, and a long novella in with their submissions, so I wanted to see what was what with their authors and staff. It was kinda funny, how people would look at my badge and frown, trying to place me.

Despite that, everyone was dear. Truly kind. The opening talks saw us sitting with Andrew Grey and Amy Lane, who I love to see, and who I missed meeting up with at Coastal Magic in Florida thanks to the big ice storm in Dallas. We got to hear about the ins and outs of the business side, which was fascinating, and then disaster struck in the form of a migraine for BA. It was off to the room for sleep and meds, so we missed the YA talk and such, but you can't predict a migraine, right?

The cocktail party was a total blast that night, though. Everyone but us dressed to the nines, though comfort was paramount it seemed. None of the corsets popped up that you see at big cons. Therefore, no boobs popped up. Ha!

The next day, Ariel Tachna and JP Barnaby talked social media and marketing. I got some great tips on how not to be a jerk, which I know I sometimes can be when I'm grumpy. Grins. Not kidding. The do not engage rule is a good one. I also learned a lot about blog hops.

That afternoon we skipped out and went on walking tour. Found chocolate and coffee and Mama Mia's trattoria. Yum. BA tried cioppino for the first time. I had scampi.

Spent a good bit of Sunday chatting with Devon Rhodes and Charley Descoteaux, which was fun! They went on to the Gay NW group meeting, while BA and I went back to Karam, a Lebanese place that had GF falafel and pita. Uhn.

Monday was spent at Powells. Y'all. A city block long bookstore. We bought so much we had to ship it home.

All in all, while I'm not sure it helped utz my book up any farther in the submissions queue (grins) I am pretty happy I got to hang with KC Wells, Andrew, Amy, Devon, Ariel, Charley, the awesome Serena Yates and many others. It was a good time, and I will definitely be thinking of Orlando in February!

XXOO

Julia

3 comments:

KO said...

I'm so glad you had a good time in Portland! While I live in Texas now, I'm from Oregon and miss it so much. I adore Powells and it definitely made getting my textbooks for a decent price so much easier when I was in college. :)

I'm sorry you got stuck with the wet--I always tell people that the best time to visit Oregon is in June/July since it's usually sunny most of the time and the temperatures still drop into the 40s at night.

Katherine Halle said...

Wow, it sounds like a real blast!! So glad you and BA had fun (even tho she got a migraine :((( ) ha ha the Do Not Engage rule on Twitter...I do that so much /o\ I find I'm not even on Twitter so much anymore (mostly because of time constraints but sometimes because of the stupid ) Do Not Engage is ALWAYS a good rule. In fact, I have a friend, who's job it is to remind me of that rule LOL.

Anyway, WOW so many books you had to ship them home? LOL WOW!!!

Glad you had fun - I swear one of these days I'm going to get to one of these things and meet you and BA - both me and Button :D

Julia said...

KO. It was sunny our last day and we got to really get out and see things. I thought the food truck craze was so much like Austin, which I adore. Katherine, Button needs to come see us at RomCon in June! Somehow we'll have to see you soon!