Barbara O’Neal’s Six Ritas

I arrived back home late last night from San Antonio, Texas, where I attended the Romance Writers of America national conference.

Since I missed the conference last year, this year’s meeting was a wonderful opportunity to connect-up in person with many of my on-line friends from the Celtic Hearts and Beau Monde chapters of RWA, as well as to hang out with friends from my two local chapters and to meet new friends, including the mother and daughter writers from Houston who I sat with at Saturday night’s Golden Heart and Rita awards ceremony.

And speaking of the awards ceremony–this makes the second conference I’ve attended where one of my chapter-mates has won the Rita award. The last time it was Tessa Dare in 2012. This time, it was the fabulous Laura Drake–not just a chapter-mate, but a friend–who took home the honor of “Best First Book”.

Here I am with Laura at her Saturday book signing.

Laura is a generous and hard-working author, whose journey to the Rita took well over a decade of writing, submitting, and starting over. And with great results! I’ve mentioned Laura’s book, The Sweet Spot in previous posts. Check it out! It’s a wonderful read!

Photos credits: Wikimedia and the author