Baltimore

After hanging out in D.C., it was time for Rach to earn her keep, so it was off to Baltimore for the first annual Women's Literature Festival. Aside from the fact that Rach always gets nervous before a public reading, she was really looking forward to the weekend since she got to hang out with friends, fans, and fellow writers.

Friday night there was a big dinner for all of the authors (free food!), and then there was a reading at the local women's books store. There were two sets of readings spaced out by two sets of music (and Rach got free drinks!). It was a great set up, and Rach and Suz both got to enjoy it because Aunt Tosh was in town, and she babysat Jackson.

Rach was thrilled that some of her friends from grad school drove over from D.C. and up from Richmond, Virginia. It was great see them both and hang out after the reading. They were kind enough to say they were impressed and not make fun of her reading voice.

Saturday morning was a full panel of readings, Q&A, and lunch with the readers. Rach read from Learning Curve and had a blast goofing around with the other authors and fans. In every picture she has with JD Glass, they are both cracking up at something (Susie said that is what happens when you put extroverts together; they have a comment for everything).

Jackson and Susie joined us for lunch and of course Jackson was a big hit, especially since he was wearing his Bold Strokes Books onesie. Rach thinks he was single-handedly responsible for selling half of her books.

After lunch it was time for the event Rachel had been dreading all week. It was the session where we were supposed to read each other's work, and Rach had drawn Radclyffe. Not only is Rad the best selling author in our genre with 30 novels in print, she is also Rachel's boss. No pressure there!
Thankfully Rach made it through with only minimal embarrassment to herself and hopefully no damage to her career.

Sunday it was off to the Pride fest in the park. There was a great battle to get a tent put up, but that is neither here nor there. Once again Jackie stole the show when he teamed up with Parker, the son of one of Rach's fans. Parker even fed Jack one of his bottles.

Rach ended up selling out of books early, so we said goodbye to everyone and immediately began counting the days until we see them all again in Ptown this October.

We try not to bore you with too much work stuff, but if you are interested in that sort of thing you can see Rach's slide show of the trip here: Part One and Part 2.