The RWA Conference – My first time (Part One)

Last week Emily and I were at the annual Romance Writers of America Conference national conference — this year in San Francisco. As Emily mentioned in her pre-Conference post, our conference days were to be filled to the brim with client meetings. And filled they were.

Emily meeting with Candice Hern

It was very exciting for me to meet — finally — face-to-face with many of our clients. Some I had met previously, but none — with one exception — have I really had a chance to have an extended conversation in person (but oh! there have been many a phone call and email conversation). Emily and I could not have scheduled anything more into our days, but I sure wish we could have had more time with our clients.

One of the reasons I love working at Wax is the connection we have with our clients. We are not just a “here’s-your-pretty-site-now see-ya-later” kind of design firm. We maintain a close relationship with our clients and closely monitor their sites to make sure they stay current and relevant. There are clients who do not want to dip more than a toe into the world of technology, so we swim in full force for them. Then there are clients who are surfing mavens and can blog circles around the rest of us. I adore ALL of these clients, but it gives me a chance to flex such a variety of tech muscles, from providing the most basic of technical help, to geeking out about new internet technologies.

So how could I, after a day full of meeting after meeting and scheduled events that only energized me, go up to my room and just sit there? I could not! So I hung out downstairs in the wireless area thinking I would get work done. Heh! As if! My first night at the hotel I ended up hanging out with some pretty awesome authors, and the inimitable Kim Castillo of Author’s Best Friend (who snapped the picture below).

Look at these wonderful authors (and me)!

Who are these talented women? I’ll tell ya: Laura Lee Guhrke, Kathryn Smith, Candice Hern, me, and Elizabeth Boyle (sorry Elizbo, none of the shots had you with open eyes!)).

Keira taking a picture of Emily taking a picture of Keira

The rest of my “free” time was filled with meeting fantastic authors and other conference attendees (including Morgan Doremus, – freelance video producer for Romantic Times online, “SB Sarah“, Keira Soleore, and others).

I walked around the Literacy Signing with a video camera in the hopes that in my “copious free time” I will get a chance to cull together a little video of some of our clients signing away. Stay tuned for that video in Part Two of my RWA National post, coming, um, soon…

Emily and Leah Vale at the Literacy Signing

A quick P.S. — As I am booked up with post-meetings tasks to do, my video may not make it to this screen for a little bit. In the meantime, please check out the fabulous posts about RWA written by some of our equally fabulous clients: Jane Porter wrote a quick note with links to photos; Elizabeth Boyle talked about how fun the conference was for her; Pam Rosenthal blogged about a workshop she moderated; Susanna Carr met with her twin’s favorite author; Hope Tarr gave a good recap of her conference activities; and this post, written by my Dad, who came to the Literacy Signing so he could see his three daughters all wearing dresses at the same time!