Literary Love Savannah: My Highlights

What happens when you spend close to a year thinking about a convention and prepping for it? You wind up seriously hoping it's all worth it--that you have highlights you won't forget afterward. Well, Literary Love Savannah 2019 did not disappoint! 

My list of highlights:

• Meeting more of the wonderful new author friends I had been chatting with all year. I had already met Shay Stone and Krys Fenner--and now I've met K. Williams and Megan Grooms! What a fun bunch! Such great people. K was an awesome roommate and after hearing Megan sing, I feel like I know Reba McEntire.​

• Chatting with moms who clearly had similar parenting philosophies to mine. Is it a literary thing? Do literary people have similar methods for raising children? Who knows, but I met such a sweet young actress who acted her age and clearly was bffs with her mom. Made me miss my daughter because we are like that, too. Also met a mom whose son came with her to the event and now my son will not hear the end of it! Loved chatting with them, too.
• Trying to catch Stella Price apparating ... because I'm convinced it's the only way someone gets everything done like she does. Definitely a Hogwarts graduate. I'd bet on it.
• Meeting Dee Stewart, an author who attended as a reader. After months of contact online, it was like meeting an old friend! 
• The moment a very sweet reader was looking at my books and I was about to explain my series when she said, "Oh, I've already read all of them!" I nearly burst into tears. What a feeling!
• I sang karaoke in a bar for the first time! Not by myself, but I got up there three times with readers and authors. Never would have done it though if it hadn't been for the awesome group who came out for such a great time.
• So, of course I knew this before--that avid readers come from all sort of backgrounds and personalities--but being around such a variety of people was one hell of a balm for my soul. I thrive around diversity of all sorts. I had been missing that.
• Little plastic men are fun.

• The creativity around me was energizing. From books, to swag, to hair, to ball costumes... creativity makes life worth living. 
• I don't know what it was about the food at the paranormal lunch, but I enjoyed that salmon and Caesar salad so much it still pops up in my thoughts.
• Chocolate cake! Am I right?
• Breakfast at Funky Brunch with readers and authors! Was so glad to get to know MK Mancos and talk gluten free info.
• Meeting authors and readers from the Northeast! Was wonderful to bask in their energy! My people.
• Meeting readers at the bar. You know people are awesome when you meet them for the first time over drinks and they feel like old friends every time you bump into them afterward!
• The IG photos from the Scavenger Hunt Shay Stone and I did. Participants had me laughing throughout the con. Who expected anyone to actually get a wedding crasher shot?
• Going to Foxy Loxy!
• I sold books! People read the blurbs and still bought. What a feeling!

• LLS was a fantastic experience with fun around every corner, but the biggest highlight for me was this: After four years of feeling like a square peg in a round hole where I live now ... after not being able to connect and 'bloom where I'm planted,' I discovered it's okay to give up on that. I have the friends I have always loved up North who are still in my life and I am capable of meeting new friends like the incomparable Shay Stone who has become one of my best friends. Then there's the ever fun and sweet Krys Fenner, K. Williams, Megan Grooms ... who I actually will be able to get together with since she's now an hour away. I have met people at this convention who I genuinely liked more in a few short minutes than anyone I've met locally in four years. I just PM gushed with author Melissa MacKinnon about Outlander this morning. And this is the thing: It's finally okay. My life is bigger than where I live. That alone made this con worth it.