What fun I had at the NOLA Stars conference! Not only did I have almost 72 hours of uninterrupted gossip and brainstorming time with my good friend, author Lynn Lorenz, but I also met a whole ton of new authors and the charming and entirely hilarious Barbara Vey.

For those of you who don’t know Barbara Vey blogs about romance for Publisher’s Weekly – http://barbaravey.com/books/. Barbara’s workshop had us in tears we laughed so hard, particularly when she spoke of how the blog started and the possible names for the blog – The Nipple Notes, The Breast of Barbara, The Vagina Vignettes – OMG, we had to hold our sides.

I also had the pleasure of meeting two amazing authors, Mandy Harbin and Parker Kincade.

Parker recently released her first novel, One Night Stand, and I hope to devour this book soon!

Isn’t the cover scrumptious?

The lovely Mandy Harbin has a few books under her belt and is remarkably diverse with her writing – and her website’s intriguing – check Mandy out at: www.mandyharbin.com

We had lunch with Kerri-Leigh Grady, the Editorial Director of Flirt and Ever After at Entangled Publishing and Winne Griggs of the NOLA chapter, the conference chair, and a terrific host.

       

Not only did I meet a bunch of wonderful, talented women, but I also managed, thanks to Lynn, to satisfy my crawfish cravings! Yep, four meals in three days – a crawfish boil, crawfish stew, crawfish etouffee, and crawfish pie!!! We ate twice at Becca’s Restaurant and these lovely ladies and Lynn helped me decide what to eat.

But the best part of the conference was the three-hour drive with Lynn Lorenz from Houston to Shreveport and back. Nothing more wonderful than spending time with a good friend.

The only thing that would’ve made it better was if the fabulous Georgia Woods, who started the two of us on our writing careers and friendship, had been with us – we missed you Georgia!

Have a wonderful Monday!

Cheers,

Jianne