Here Come Da Chair

Well, it's official: I'm Program Chair for the 2011 HNS Conference. Huzzah!

Details pending (you know, trifling details, like where and when), though Richard Scott and Ann Chamberlin will soon embark on a hotel-finding quest and shall doubtless emerge victorious. More details then, both here and in official venues like the HNS membership list and the HNS Yahoo group.

I'm thinking I'll organize a complete bacchanalia. After all, the world might end in 2012.

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Blogging about Blogging

Wow! I'm in a blog! (Not this one.) Barbara Vey of "Beyond Her Book" included a photo of us at the Historical Novel Society conference this weekend on her blog at Publisher's Weekly. That's me on the left, having an ok hair day.

As you can probably tell from the title, I plan for this blog to be a place where I talk about fiction (historical and otherwise) that I wish I'd written. So far my contribution to world literature has been my dissertation. If you're dying to know more about the history of writing technologies, from clay and quills to word processors and wikis, go here. If you're a normal person, however, you probably just want to hear about the fun stuff.

I got to talk with Chris Gortner, aka C.W. Gortner, author of The Last Queen, who I've seen at previous conferences but who always seemed kind of scary to me. He's not scary at all up close. He has a great story of his road to success (pubication by a major house and strong sales after 13 years of rejections!!), and is kind and encouraging to bright-eyed youngish hopefuls like me. Plus he has nice handwriting.

Juliet Waldron and I always have a good time at the HNS conference; she wrote Mozart's Wife, which I wish I had written. She, in turn, tells me I look like Lauren Bacall. So it's a mutually fulfilling friendship.

AND I got to hang with my favorite author, Margaret George, who was one of our keynote speakers. I got to know Margaret many years ago when, in a fit of adolescent geekiness, I wrote her a fan letter and she actually wrote back. We've had a long-distance sort of friendship ever since, punctuated by a lunch or postcard here and there. She's awesome in person - very down-to-earth, funny, and eager to talk with anyone who shares her passion for historical writing.

One other great thing about conferences: I now know tons of secrets. Juicy, delicious secrets. And no, I'm not telling them here.