Lori Foster's Annual Reader & Author Get Together: Day 1

So here we are on Day 1 of the Reader & Author Get Together. The drive here wasn't too bad at all, only two hours. That's not two hours from my home, but I had to leave the Tot somewhere. So I drove last week to my parents' house, and then on Thursday I headed to the hotel in Cincinnati. The actual town the hotel is in (West Chester) is pretty decent, nice little area. First I'll give you the lowdown on what went on, and then I can go ahead and post a few pictures!

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[image error]Registration was easy, just giving them both my pen name (which is on my name tag) and my real name, they handed me my tag, my goodie bag (more on that later, maybe tomorrow) and a raffle ticket. Sasha Devlin, Keri Ford (both pictured to the left), Kaily Hart and I meandered a little and found a table. We sat, we chatted, we waited and then at 6pm Lori took the mic and announced a few things, including introducing the special guests (editors and agents taking pitches) and the volunteers.

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[image error]Then it was time for pizza, provided by Liquid Silver. And a huge cake that a few people (volunteers I think?) brought, celebrating the fact that Lori Foster has been a published author for 15 years. So it was an "anniversary cake." Pretty cute. Some people took off to do dinner elsewhere. And others had editor/agent pitches tonight. But Kaily, Sasha and I stayed and ate pizza. We hung out, checked out the baskets that were there for a raffle. Keri Ford and I actually put one together between the two of us. It's over there to the right. It includes Keri's book (Volume 1 of the Apple Trail series), actual apples, some sodas, a thumb drive with all my books, mason jars and apple tea.

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[image error]There were lifesize cut-outs of Lori Foster's newest three heroes, the men who walk the edge of honor. You could get your pic taken with them. I managed to snag a picture of Lori herself standing with "her boys." Then they started up some games. There was something like musical chairs…except they read excerpts from books instead of playing music. And then there was also Pin The Post-It On The … Dog Tag. (You totally thought I was about to say something dirty, weren't you? haha) They brought over one of the cutouts that had visible dog tags and you were blindfolded and had to find the tags. That was amusing. Somehow a lot of post it notes ended up a little close to crotch level…

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[image error]Sasha, Kaily and I headed to the bar afterward. (See myself and Kaily pictured to the right. Not my best photo ever…but Kaily looks great!) We talked with a few people, I had a delicious raspberry daiquiri, and we just relaxed a bit. And then we headed up to our rooms, where I am now writing this blog post.

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So far, it's been fun. But tonight wasn't really the meat of the conference. Tomorrow (Saturday) is going to be the big day. There are workshops, there are "author Q&A" sessions, and there's the book signing, which I'm really looking forward to. Following are a few more photos of the day. More to come later. Check back for day 2 and photos and more of what I experienced at the Get Together!

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Here's Keri putting together our basket before we went down for the registration. We had quite a bit of amusement on how to wrap the whole thing up. And wow, there were some unbelievable, awesome baskets donated this year!

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Here's one of myself and Sasha before I got ready. She's all cute and made up, and I don't even have makeup on! But she looks so cute, I couldn't not share it.

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Here's something cool. My first signature! And it's on a tote bag, of all things. haha Someone from Author Island is using the tote bags as give aways, and she asked all authors to sign it. So I signed several tote bags (along with the other authors at my table). My first signature! (Of course, since I took the pic, that's not me doing the signing. That's Keri. But my signature is in the blue-green pen. )

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