GRL round Up 2012

Hey y'all!

Finally got caught up on sleep, emails and not on edits, so I thought I'd do a wrap up on my impressions of GRL 2012 in Albuquerque.

First off, let me thank everyone who organized the con. Carol, JP, Ethan, Damon, Heidi, Teresa, and all the volunteers. Brandi and Randy were particularly helpful. If I missed anyone, please hit me with a rock. Y'all did a great job, and we appreciate it.

Next, the hotel. We'd read the online comments, and we were scared. With our various food allergies, especially, we were frightened of being out on the pueblo with no way to get into Albuquerque proper. Well, the hotel (The Hard Rock Hotel and Casino on the Isleta Pueblo) was awesome. It was really inexpensive as con hotels go, and it had three great restaurants, a coffee shop, and a little bitty drugstore. The best part? 90% of their Mexican food was gluten free, and they had good enough cross contamination practices that BA Tortuga, my partner, never got sick once. We gorged on tacos and Frito pie, and the night we ate at the steakhouse, Embers, with the amazing ladies at Resplendence Press, we were amazed at how yummy it all was. Everyone at the bell desk was incredibly accommodating, too, especially Donna, who was always in the know.

We got late Tuesday night, and were there through Monday morning, which, Lord, y'all, that's a long time to be away from bassets. (My niece, who housesat for us, thought it was a long time to be WITH bassets.) We laughed, and hugged and basically behaved badly with our friends and fellow authors until Thursday, when most everyone else showed up. At the opening dinner, we sat with the ladies from Ndulgent Bloggers, and those ladies are a hoot! We had a Torquere Press luncheon in Old Town on Friday, which I thought went really well, thanks to La Hacienda, who catered our almuerza. After the luncheon it was off to the CVS to pick up good drugs for my injured BA, and then she got to hallucinate all night at the Resplendence karaoke party. Dude, if you've never taken mind-altering substances and listened to Damon Suede sing, you NEED to come next year.

On Saturday, we attended the booksigning, which was so neat, as I got to meet so many readers and chat about books. The most interesting thing anyone said to us was that BA and I were the "old ladies" of m/m, and she was more interested in reading new folks. So, tell me the truth, guys, am I over? (winks) I think not. I have too many stories to tell.

Saturday night we did the bowling party with Amy Lane, Marshall Thornton, Kiernan Kelly, TC Blue and AR Moler. That was so much fun, y'all! We had 4-5 readers per lane, gave out amazing bags of stuff, drank lots of beer, and (mostly) bowled badly. It was a hoot to get to know everyone! Brunch Sunday with Ariel from Dreamspinner capped us off, and it was great to get to say I'll be a Dreamspinner when my advent calendar story comes out!

Mostly, it was so much fun to hang with everyone and meet new people. Andrew Grey, you owe us coffee! (g)

Thanks to everyone who made it such a great trip. Next year is in Atlanta, and while I loathe that town (sorry if I offend, it's true) I might just have to suck it up and take one for the GRL team ;)

XXOO

Julia Talbot