Second Life

So ironic...last year a group of Fresh Fiction staff attended the SXSW Interactive...for the uninitiated that's the South by Southwest conference held in Austin during the famous music and film festival. All the digit heads, an old term probably shows MY age, meet to discuss new and cool stuff relating to technology and media / entertainment. I got sucked in because G has been attending the Film and Music parts for a couple of years and I've usually spent the week with her in Austin, but I'd get bored with nothing to do. So, I dragged a few other FF members in 2006 to check out the Interactive part of the conference. AND WOW, what an eye-opener!

But there were two outstanding presentations we continue to talk about... the emergence of Second Life and Threadless. We're not going to discuss Threadless because they still piss me off...long story told best in a bar over a couple of drinks...but the Second Life is just ironic. M and D attended that one and couldn't really get it. I said jokingly they should open a bookstore in the virtual world or at least publish some books there.

So what do you know? Someone is doing it! Actually a couple of some bodies. They've got bookstores up now, an author doing booksignings in the Second Life and now a literary agency is trolling for new authors to sign!

Why does no one listen to me?

DFW Tea Ladies and Lori Wilde

DFW Tea Ladies
Originally uploaded by freshfiction.

I'm in the middle of a duh phase...for all of you subscribed to our newsletters I got a bit mixed up at midnight on Sunday and switched a list. But on a bright note, some of you got to see what the daily Fresh Press newsletter looks like. And while it wasn't a high brow weekend, there were some interesting authors and books on the media. But as usual, I digress, and since I haven't had coffee yet, the digression may be even MORE pronounced than usual.

Doing catchup on work since the "Buns and Roses" is over except for the debrief, but it was a grand success and hopefully we made lots of new friends and introduced new readers to the romance genre and romance readers to new authors! If you want to see -- inquiring minds are always curious -- what you missed, check it out.

As for today, this is about it. I've read nothing worth blabbing about in the past three days -- Time and Newsweek and the thumb nailed CSS manual don't count. So, please feel free to tell us what you've been reading!

Oh, plug for Lori Wilde. We bought her table at the "Buns and Roses" Romance Tea for Literacy and she gave this GORGEOUS little hostess table gifts to each of us. I'd take a picture but my desk is covered with "stuff" and looks very messy, but it includes "kissing frogs" (I LOVE them), scented candle (mmmmmmm, nice), a silver frame for putting up a fav picture (not my family right now, but I've got a cute dog picture I can put in there), a BN gift card (it's spent, sorry guys), PLUS an adorable bag of chocolates (uh, gee Gwen, thanks for eating them for me!) and a copy of her book, DESTINY'S HAND. Pretty cool, don't you think?

WOW, a romance tea supporting literacy complete with a man in a kilt!

Lori Wilde's Table
Originally uploaded by freshfiction.

Okay, so the "Buns and Roses Romance Tea for Literacy" in Richardson was the butt of the Dallas Observer's comments, but it was a grand showing on Sunday (and why I did NOT blog -- I was exhausted!) I'm not sure the exact count, but I know it was over 180 guests for the tea at The Richardson Hotel. We were entertained royally by our emcee Candace Havens -- the witty entertainment reporter on the Dorsey Gang -- and inspired by Elizabeth Boyle.

We had two tables: DFW Tea Readers group had Lori Wilde as our hostess and PatCat Books had Judy Christenberry as theirs. A HUGE thanks to Pat Richardson for her contributions on Sunday and for racing from work to make it!

Over 22 romances authors, locally and from across the country, were the table hostesses for the tea which benefited the literacy programs of Richardson. The authors included: Lorraine Heath, Gena Showalter, Shanna Swendson, Arlene James, Lori Wilde, Kathleen Baldwin, Sandy Blair, Celya Bowers, Victoria Chancellor, Judy Christenberry, Gretchen Craig, Jana DeLeon, Shana Galen, Kristi Gold, Jane Graves, Jackie Ivie, Kara Lennox, Janis Susan May, Jill Monroe, and Catherine Spangler. Their books are from every section of the romance genre -- from series romance, romantic suspense, inspirational romance, historical, paranormal, humorous and contemporary. I hope I didn't miss any!

The only disappointment was none of us won the big prize of a WEEK in Scotland at a Victorian Shooting Lodge! Can you imagine! For up to ten people, so of course I warned everyone if any of our members won it we'd be having a tea over there *evil grin*

So, check out our photos -- we'll be adding more -- and don't miss it next year if you can make it to Richardson in October!