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In the before times, one of my favorite things to do every year was volunteer at the LA Times Festival of Books. I have a love/hate relationship with the LA Times because historically, they have been very dismissive of the romance genre (romance is the only genre not recognized in their yearly book prizes, for example). Pre-pandemic, we were lucky if we got one good romance panel throughout the weekend. This year, the first in person year since lockdown, the Ripped Bodice took over the romance panels for the festival, and you all know how much I love the Ripped Bodice. They put together three amazing panels and had some stellar signings happening at their booth (seriously, the lines were bananas). Hopefully the turnout will ensure even more romance programming in the future! As for me, I almost didn’t go to the festival this year because I had weddings Friday and Saturday and honestly, when I woke up on Sunday, my whole body was just aching. But I had made plans to meet up with some writer friends I haven’t ever met in person, and so I lugged my tired old ass out of bed and drove to LA. And I’m SO GLAD I did. I had the best time, met some incredible people, and overall had such an exciting an uplifting day.
When I got to the festival, I was able to meet up with Julie Tieu (author of The Donut Trap) and Lacie Waldon (author of The Layover). Julie and I have been Twitter friends for years now, and Lacie is a fellow Putnam author who just relocated to LA, so it was so cool to finally meet face to face and have real conversations! They are both lovely humans and very talented writers and we had a lot of fun chatting throughout the day. The three of us went to see a panel with Jasmine Guillory and Christina and Lauren, who are honestly all at the top of their games. It was really cool to hear more about their processes and just be in their presence, honestly.
After the panel, we headed over to get in line for Denise Williams’s signing. Denise is another Twitter friend who I’ve never met in person, but she is basically the kindest human being ever. She blurbed my book for me and has always been so supportive and lovely and no surprises here, she’s just as fabulous in person. I also got to meet up with Elissa Sussman and have her sign my copy of Funny You Should Ask. I’m big mad at myself for not grabbing a pic with her, but she was amazing as always!
One of the highlights of the day was getting to meet Ali Hazelwood (author of a little book called The Love Hypothesis) and Christina and Lauren. We had a drive by meeting with CLo as we walked with Ali to her next signing (the girl was in demand!) but I chatted with them and Lauren told me she’d heard of my book and Ali said it was on her TBR and then they both followed me on Instagram, so yes I am writing this post from the beyond because I’m definitely dead. Honestly, meeting Christina and Lauren was just the absolute best. They are so kind and lovely and welcoming. One of my goals as an author is to do whatever I can to promote and support other authors and I think they really lead the pack in doing just that. I want to be them when I grow up.
And in probably the most surreal moment of the day, I got recognized, not once, but twice! Does this make me a real author now? It was incredible chatting with people who said they read and loved my book and it was definitely the highlight in a pretty stellar day. I’m already counting down to next year and blocking off the whole weekend because I will be spending the whole festival being the bookish fangirl I am deep down inside.
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