I’ll no doubt have more to say about RWA in coming weeks when my brain has settled somewhat, but first, a brief glimpse at my experience.

I arrived on Wednesday, got checked in, and met up with friends for dinner. After that, we went out to the Smart Bitches reader party, where we all wore mustaches. This took place in the back half of a music hall/restaurant/bar, and let me tell you, we got some highly intrigued looks from the “regular” patrons. My friends and I wore the plain black mustaches, but Kari Young (who I don’t know, but obviously should) brought one that matched her hair!

On Thursday, my agent’s agency had a luncheon at Mary Mac’s Tea Room. Naturally, it included fried green tomatoes. (I must say, being gluten free is not easy when traveling in the south.)

I mean, just look at those delicious fried green tomatoes! I wanted to eat them sooooo badly.

Then, right after the luncheon, I ran off to the indie signing to grab a book from the fabulous @briaquinlan for my niece. Here she is signing them. (I asked her to write the dedication to my niece and she was positively wicked in what she said. You would never guess to look at her–doesn’t she look sweet and innocent?–what an evil imagination she really has.)

On Friday, I had my own signing! It was fun, even if we at the InterMix table didn’t have physical books. InterMix has a sampler available with sample chapters from their 2013 titles and we had download cards for that (if you’re interested in the sampler, it’s free at all digital outlets). I also signed chocolate bars.

Friday night Penguin had a cocktail party for its authors, editors, etc, which was great fun because I got to meet people whose work I’ve been reading for ages.

Saturday, I finally had time to go to some panels. They were fascinating and so useful! Usually I manage to get to a lot of panels at national, but this year I was just ridiculously busy! I took some pictures at the panels, too, but then I lost my phone, so…

Before the awards ceremony for the Ritas and Golden Hearts, I went to dinner with old friends @IsobelCarr (the other half of my Twitter brain) and @SarahFrantz, and new friend Kris Hohls, of LoveLetter Magazine in Germany. We went to a fantastic restaurant called Abattoir. If you like meat, I highly, highly recommend it next time you’re in Atlanta. We were definitely the problem table because Isobel is allergic to eggplant, Kris is vegetarian, I am gluten-sensitive, and Sarah is extremely allergic to milk products. But the restaurant managed to feed us all admirably.

We made it back to the hotel just in time for the awards ceremony. And, of course, the Samhain after party, where they had excellent dancing music and delicious desserts. But I had to go to bed. I was exhausted.