I just want to say thanks to the Friends of the Sul­li­van County Library in Blountville, Tenn. for host­ing me at their meet­ing last night. It was a very small, but lovely group of women. The food was great, and I think a good time was had by all.

Thanks, ladies!

I attended the Moun­tain Lau­rel Con­fer­ence, hosted by the Smoky Moun­tain Romance Writ­ers, in Knoxville last week­end. There were prize give­aways, free good­ies, great books, great food, and sev­eral work­shops (includ­ing one on media issues given by yours truly).

And I had a blast.

About 45 peo­ple attended the con­fer­ence, which I thought was a great num­ber. Unlike the mad crush of the annual RWA con­fer­ence, you could actu­ally talk to every­one you wanted to meet, includ­ing folks like Sher­ri­lyn Kenyon, Vicki Lewis Thomp­son, Sab­rina Jef­fries, Jade Lee, Eliz­a­beth Hoyt, and Jenna Peter­son. All of whom were absolutely funny and charm­ing and witty.

Sabrina’s talk Fri­day night about rejec­tions was laugh-out-loud funny. Vicki wore bunny ears for a large part of the day on Sat­ur­day. I talked to Sher­ri­lyn about hair-care prod­ucts and found out that Jenna uses kick-ass James Bond titles for her Avon books. Well, you get the idea …

It was also great meet­ing every­one from the SMRW loop in per­son and finally putting names with faces. You ladies did a ter­rific job with the con­fer­ence. Kudos to you all! I know it was a ton of work, but I hope you’ll have one again next year. I’ll totally be there. :cool:

Stu­pid me for­got to take my cam­era, so I don’t have any pic­tures to share. Bum­mer. It was also a bit of a bum­mer that I didn’t have any books yet since Karma Girl doesn’t offi­cially come out until May 1, or three weeks from Tues­day. (Not that I’m count­ing down or anything …)

But a good time was def­i­nitely had by all.

What about you? What con­fer­ences have you gone to this year? Or are look­ing for­ward to? What’s the best/worst thing about con­fer­ences? Inquir­ing minds want to know …

Karma Girl has got­ten another awe­some review, this time from Fresh Fic­tion. Here’s what the reviewer, Paula Myers, had to say:

KARMA GIRL, by new author Jen­nifer Estep, is a laugh– out-loud roller coaster ride of pure escapist enter­tain­ment! Read­ers are drawn into an amaz­ing world of good and evil and heroes and vil­lains with over-the-top set­tings and char­ac­ters. Ms. Estep has painstak­ingly cre­ated a comic book world and pop­u­lated it with a col­lec­tion of cre­atively believ­able peo­ple entwined in a basic bat­tle of good vs. evil, with some romance thrown in on the side.

When I started read­ing this story, I had no idea what to expect. And when I read the words “span­dex” and “super­heroes” in the same para­graph, I was con­cerned about get­ting through the next 300+ pages. Well, I was up until 3 a.m. (not good on a school night!) because I couldn’t put this book down! Ms. Estep has a gift for sto­ry­telling and show­cases it beau­ti­fully in what I hope is the first of many adven­tures of Karma Girl and the Fear­less Five. This one is going on my keeper shelf!

Wow! I’m going on her keeper shelf! Yeah!

Tehc­ni­cally, this hap­pened yse­ter­day, but I did a guest blog for Louise Ahearn’s site, Boom! Explosive PR Solu­tions for Authors, where I talk about what some authors dread the most — being inter­viewed by a journalist. 

I recently took Louise’s PR Boot­camp class through Author MBA, and I would highly rec­om­mend it. She really makes you work hard and think about brand­ing, themes in your writ­ing, and how you can make the most of them. 

Enjoy the blog!

So, I’m plan­ning on going to the RWA National Con­fer­ence in Dal­las this year. The prob­lem is that I live about 1,000 miles from Dal­las. So, I can either spend about 18 hours in a car both ways – or I can fly.

Gulp!

I’ve never flown before. (Well, one time when I was three, but that doesn’t really count.) To say I’m ner­vous would be a severe under­state­ment. Ter­ri­fied. Pet­ri­fied. Rac­ing heart. Sweaty palms. Upset stom­ach. Three sec­onds away from a major freak out. That’s me when I think about flying.

In an attempt to over­come or at least lessen my fears, yes­ter­day I went out to the Tri-Cities Regional Air­port. Mar­ket­ing direc­tor Melissa Thomas was nice enough to walk me through the whole fly­ing process, from arriv­ing at the air­port, to going through secu­rity, to actu­ally get­ting on the plane. I also got to look inside a 30-seater plane, which was cool. A big thanks go out to Melissa and the air­port. You guys rock!

I still don’t know if I can suck it up and get on a plane, though. Then again, I don’t want to spend the bet­ter part of a week dri­ving either. My sig­nif­i­cant other wants to fly. He says we’ll have a drink before we get on, and every­thing will be fine.

Sure it will. Until I start hyper­ven­ti­lat­ing and/or scream­ing and claw­ing at the door. He’s threat­ened to bring along some duct tape to take care of those poten­tial prob­lems, but I think secu­rity might have a prob­lem with that.

What about you? Any­body out there have any fly­ing tips for me? Hate fly­ing? Love it? Is it worth the hassle? Inquiring minds want to know …