Home from the Isle of Palms

John and I just returned from spending the weekend on the gorgeous Isle of Palms, near Charleston, South Carolina, where I was part of an authors’ luncheon at the Wild Dunes Resort. It was so much fun to chat with readers, meet the four other authors who spoke on a panel with me, and spend time with one of my best friends, Mary Alice Monroe, who is lucky enough to live on the Isle of Palms and who helps organize this event each year.

Tamar Myers, who is hysterically funny, talked about her growing-up years in the Congo where she lived with a tribe of headhunters (seriously. I mean, how could any of us top that??) Ann Ross, is the author of the fabulously popular and funny and quirky Miss Julia series.

We were interviewed by Mary Alice for the hour long panel presentation. There was Jeffrey Stepakoff, former screenwriter turned novelist whose first novel, Fireworks over Toccoa, has one of the most luscious covers I’ve ever seen. Lisa Genova has one of those amazing stories unpublished authors dream about: she couldn’t find a publisher for Still Alice, so she self-pubbed it and promoted it herself. Only then did it find an agent and a publisher and the rest is best-sellerdom history.

Afterwards, John and I went out to dinner with Mary Alice and her husband and local author Nina Bruhns, where the guys talked cars and Mary Alice, Nina and I talked about the writing biz. We could have gone on all night, but alas, all good things must come to an end.

Now it’s back to the real world. I’ll be blogging this week about my new writing schedule and how I hope it will help me meet my insanely tight deadline. That is, if I can find the time! Hope everyone had as enjoyable a weekend as I did.