I had the privilege of spending some time with the mysterious, beautiful, and elusive Shannon McKenna this weekend, wandering around Little Italy in New York and then Chinatown for dinner, with her husband, who is kind, brilliant, and charming, and their two children, a new baby son and young daughter. Fun fact about Shannon: she is passionate about fat little wiggly shrimp dumplings and has the fastest chopsticks at the table, so watch it. Fun fact about her husband: he can make a Chinese lion puppet tapdance in a restaurant and make it talk in Italian-accented English. Fun fact about her daughter: she is insatiably curious and as much fun as her mother just to be with. Fun fact about her infant son: he looks like a miniature movie star! And yes, Shannon PROMISES in giant capital letters to update her website.

RWA conference in San Francisco was truly enjoyable—among other lulls in the whirlwind, I met with Jami Alden there for over an hour to go over revisions on KEPT, her second romantic suspense for Brava. I talked, she took notes on a laptop (and I have to say she types faster than I talk, which is remarkable, considering how I go on sometimes). But it was great to have sit-down, face to face time with an author—nearly all editor/author interaction is online these days and, swift as it is, there’s no substitute for really being with someone (cf. THE VELVETEEN RABBIT and similar child-oriented sniffle-fests on wear and tear of actual interaction, transcendence of the soul resulting from. Split seams that leak stuffing, a missing button eye, shabby patches are an editor’s uniform more than often not. No time to shop, uncertain grasp of concept of accessorizing, sartorial gene lacking. Just don’t step on my blue suede shoes when and if I can afford them. But I’m there for ya otherwise.).

Anyway, back to what I was talking about, the creative process of writing is largely solitary and that’s not always a good thing. You know what I mean. The late night brooding over the model on your new cover—is his hair just too weird and can it be changed two weeks prior to pub date, just in case there is a clause in my contract that protects me from 1970s hairstyles on a book set in Tudor England? (Answer: no. Just be grateful we didn’t call your book THE LORDS OF MULLET) The pointless, somewhat furtive obsession with Amazon rankings and peculiar statistics, such as 46% of the people who bought this book also bought 29% of this other book that you didn’t write! What does it meannnnnnnnnn???? (Answer: nothing.)

Hope there’s a great turnout for the Washington DC conference next year. Most everything is free, and the Metro gets you almost everywhere you’ll want to go for next to nothing. One of my favorite memories of the city (I spent every other weekend there for several years) was, once, taking a family’s photo in front of the statue of Lincoln. Click, click, I handed their camera back, and realized a short line had formed. Whatever! So spent an hour or more taking pictures for people of every ethnicity and age you could imagine. They were smiling but also solemn. Let freedom ring.

P.S. Plus when you walk up the steps of the Lincoln Memorial it feels exactly like you are walking into the back of a penny, only gigantic and dreamlike. Anyway, come if you can.