I just had the most wonderful weekend at Romancing the Capital, Eve Langlais’ reader event in Ottawa, Canada. This was the third year for the conference, and it was the third time I’ve attended. The pictures below were taken by Jess Ripley, who photographed the event.

This conference starts with a half-day of panels about writing and publishing. I taught one panel called “I’ve written a book – now what?” which was Eve’s title and a HUGE topic. She had to come and tell me to stop as I was running long. (No matter how carefully I time a workshop by reading it aloud, it always takes longer to deliver in person.) And here I am. 🙂
I was on two more panels that day. One was about negotiating with publishers and agents, with Coreene Callahan and Darynda Jones:

And the second was on the choices available to authors, being traditionally published, indie or hybrid, with ‘Nathan Smith, Elle James, myself and Milly Taiden. It was so interesting to hear all the differing perspectives.

I was on two fun historical romance panels: the first was with myself (as Claire Delacroix), Sharon Page, Anna Markland and Barbara Devlin.

The second was with Anna and Barb again:
I had help at my Knights vs. Dragons puzzle session, from Sharon Page (who continued to wear her tiara, but it really suited her), Mary Ann Abraham and Amy Ruttan. We put together puzzles in this session of my book covers and there are prizes – for the very first time, one of the puzzles was finished by Sophie and her team. It was the new cover of The Princess and I was blown away that they completed it in just 45 minutes. I loved seeing the cover 24″ high, too.

We also had a panel discussion about Dragons! From the left, Coreene Callahan, Eve Langlais, myself and Milly Taiden. Notice that we’re all wearing beautiful crocheted shawls (oops. Eve must have taken hers off. The room was very warm). The pattern is called Wingspan and the reader who created them for us – along with custom dragon pins – was Josée. What a treat and a lovely surprise! (Doesn’t Milly look like she’s making trouble?! She is so cute!) I’ll give you a better look at the shawl on Friday.

I was particularly spoiled at this conf this year. Dayna and Sylvie brought me a personalized gift box with goodies inside. Eniko and Mary Ann made me an armband with a dragon on it and a pair of those wonderful ear wires that look like dragon ears. Eniko also made me a dragon egg of my own. I also finally met both Amanda and Mary, who have been big Dragonfire fans for a long time. they were the first readers to tell me that they were getting Dragonfire tattoos and I saw their matching tattoos this weekend. Mary blew me away by dressing as the Wyvern for the costume ball. That’s the first time anyone has dressed as one of my characters and told me about it, so I got a bit sniffly. 🙂

There were so many great moments. I got to hug Felicia, another Dragonfire fan. Haidee and her daughter came to the conf again this year, which meant more hugs. Brigitte realized I was also Claire Cross and brought her Berkley trade copies of the Coxwells from her keeper shelf for me to sign. (More hugs.) Sharon Page and I (as always) ended up having nachos together, drinking wine and talking about publishing. It’s become a tradition. 🙂 I finally met Barb Devlin and Anna Markland, two historical romance authors I’ve known for ages online. I met the president of ORWA and have my fingers crossed that we’ll work out a date for me to teach at the Ottawa chapter soon. I know I’m forgetting people and apologize for that – it was an awesome weekend, filled with fun.

And then there was the booksigning. As always, it was terrific at RTC – so many books and so much fun! I shared a table with Ashlyn Chase, but once the doors were open, we were too busy to chat. The first pic is before the doors were opened and the second is after.

As in the past two years, Romancing the Capital 2017 was a completely amazing event. I’m really hoping that Eve Langlais decides to host this reader conference again next year. It’s such fun, and we’re getting used to seeing some familiar faces each year – as well as meeting new attendees! As a complete bonus, I came home with plot bunnies. I’m excited to be planning out a new project.

Now, here’s the wonderful part: to celebrate RTC and so you can live vicariously, I have TWO reader registration bags to give away. They’re jammed full of goodies! Please comment on this post and tell me what you love best about reader conferences. If you haven’t ever been to one, tell me why you’d like to attend one. I’ll pick two winners at the end of August. Because the bags are bulky, this contest is only open to readers in the US and Canada. Good luck!

Edited to add – Congrats to ERIN, who is the winner of one of the registration bags. The other one will be chosen from the Facebook comments.