Squawk Radio
Monday, May 23, 2005
Eloisa on SeaBreezes, and Hobnobbing with the Rich and Famous
I'm back from the Harpers Ferry Romance Conference...which was, hands down, one of the most fun conferences I've ever attended. Mind you, it was a lot of work. I gave the keynote on Saturday night. To give you the background, our own Lisa was the keynote for the Friday night meal and she got nervous and couldn't eat before. So she gave an absolutely brilliant talk and migrated to the bar with us...and then after a bit she glanced owlishly around the table, clutching her Seabreeze, and said "So...when you're making love with your husband, do you ever..." (I'm excising the rest of that question--you'll have to ask her in private!)
Keeping Lisa in mind, I made myself eat dinner before getting up for my talk. Nervous? Who me? OK, Lisa had given a heart-rending, inspirational speech that had people weeping in their soup. The room was full, and absolutely silent as she spoke. My speech compared me to Mata Hari and Superbaby and was supposed to be funny. ha ha. Jenny Crusie was going to be in the audience. Ditto Pat Gaffney and Nora Roberts. ha ha ha. I started hyperventilating shortly after waking up that morning.
Once the speech was over, I migrated to the taproom, but due to having eaten my dinner, I felt free to have three Seabreezes. I'm not sure entirely how to explain the evening, but here's a list of what I remember:
1) Nora Roberts reads people's palms and is terrifyingly good at it. After she said precisely how many important men had appeared in each person's life (and got it absolutely right for me), I kept my palms to myself.
2) Patricia Gaffney is incredibly beautiful. She claims writing is difficult. It's hard to believe anything she says, because I kept thinking that she looked like a Renaissance portrait of an angel.
3) Nora Roberts has a clothing exchange every year for WRW members in which she throws piles of Prada clothing on the floor and they throw themselves enthusiastically in the melee. Unfortunately, at close range not only is Nora nice, beautiful and a good palm-reader: she's about a size four. Not a reason to join the WRW, even though I love Prada.
5) Shirley Hailstock is one of the bravest, toughest women I know -- she's raising her beautiful three year old granddaughter without a single complaint. Hurrah for Shirley!
Lisa and I gathered some industry gossip and she'll blog on that tomorrow...
Keeping Lisa in mind, I made myself eat dinner before getting up for my talk. Nervous? Who me? OK, Lisa had given a heart-rending, inspirational speech that had people weeping in their soup. The room was full, and absolutely silent as she spoke. My speech compared me to Mata Hari and Superbaby and was supposed to be funny. ha ha. Jenny Crusie was going to be in the audience. Ditto Pat Gaffney and Nora Roberts. ha ha ha. I started hyperventilating shortly after waking up that morning.
Once the speech was over, I migrated to the taproom, but due to having eaten my dinner, I felt free to have three Seabreezes. I'm not sure entirely how to explain the evening, but here's a list of what I remember:
1) Nora Roberts reads people's palms and is terrifyingly good at it. After she said precisely how many important men had appeared in each person's life (and got it absolutely right for me), I kept my palms to myself.
2) Patricia Gaffney is incredibly beautiful. She claims writing is difficult. It's hard to believe anything she says, because I kept thinking that she looked like a Renaissance portrait of an angel.
3) Nora Roberts has a clothing exchange every year for WRW members in which she throws piles of Prada clothing on the floor and they throw themselves enthusiastically in the melee. Unfortunately, at close range not only is Nora nice, beautiful and a good palm-reader: she's about a size four. Not a reason to join the WRW, even though I love Prada.
5) Shirley Hailstock is one of the bravest, toughest women I know -- she's raising her beautiful three year old granddaughter without a single complaint. Hurrah for Shirley!
Lisa and I gathered some industry gossip and she'll blog on that tomorrow...
Eloisa James, 4:24 PM
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