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It’s safe to say that GayRomLit 2012 exceeded expectations. I got to meet many of my favorite authors, find out what several of the leading publishers look for, hear some great readings and spend my anniversary with Will (our first as a legally married couple in New York State) enjoying it all.

So many things made the weekend great. Here’s a recap of what stands out for me, in no particular order:

  • Meeting Isabelle Rowan, author of one of my favorite all time books, A Note in the Margin (which also has a sequel, Twelve Days, that I also love), and discovering her working on a third book in the Margin series while manning her autograph table Saturday afternoon. She writes long hand, using pencils, in a note book. It was great to know that the words on that page were going to end up being another Margins book.
  • Z.A. Maxfield and JeffAfter a couple years chatting on Twitter, meeting Z.A. Maxfield was a blast. She is incredibly fun. I was able to get my copy of St. Nacho’s autographed (it’s another one of my all-time favorite books). She also gave me a I ♥ St. Nacho’s t-shirt, which I was wearing when we had our picture snapped.
  • Will and I met Geoff Knight last year when he was passing through New York on his way to GRL2011. We connected again in Albuquerque and we got to hang out with him (and his mother who made the trip with him) quite a bit. It’s always fun connecting with Geoff to talk about what’s going on in life, with writing and to take in what’s happening. Geoff also had the most hysterical reading as he quite animatedly read the first chapter of Paperboy.
  • I heard about Boxer Falls for the first time (and I’m really not sure how I missed out on this earlier). This is a unique, soap opera-esque series developed by a team of M/M writers. Set in the town of Boxer Falls, Maine, all kinds of crazy soapy stuff happens here. What makes it so unique is that each writer picks up the story from where it’s left off and can then take it in seemingly any direction they want. The first “season” of the weekly series is due to be anthologized in early 2013 with the proceeds going to charity. I’m going to pick that up and enjoy the entire first season in one block.
  • Jeff with Stephani HechtStephani Hecht is an incredible woman. She’s a prolific writer. She writes a series of M/M hockey books (Blue Line Hockey)  that I enjoy (I have four more still to read). She’s also a Detroit Red Wings fan! I was excited to see her on the list of authors for GRL and I was thrilled to meet her. Not only did I get to have a fan moment, I also interviewed her where we discussed her love of hockey, her books and her LGBT advocacy for an post/book review I’ll do later this fall for PuckBuddys
  • Speaking of PuckBuddys, I checked in with a number of publishers who were at GRL looking for hockey books in the back catalogs. I discovered a few so my reading list will be filling up as I acquire them.
  • It was cool to meet Elisa, who is behind Elisa Reviews. She gave a good review to Dancer and Sexy Big Man when it came out and it was great to meet her in person after years of following her on Facebook. She also shot this great picture of us on Saturday evening:
  • We caught up with Clare London, which was great since she didn’t make it to NYC for the Rainbow Book Fair back in March. She caught a bug (or maybe brought a bug with her) and was a bit under the weather, but we still had a couple of enjoyable breakfasts with her.
  • I even got a little work on my manuscript done on the trip. Between the 12-ish hours on a plane and two or three hours of down time at the retreat, I made edits on 17 scenes of Hat Trick over the weekend. I am pleased with that process. I’ve got 10 days to get the edits done so I can start NaNoWriMo so I can work on two short stories during the month.
You can check out more pictures from GRL in the Flickr album. You can also read Will’s recap over at jeffandwill.com.

Next year GRL is in Atlanta and we’re already making plans to go. We’re excited that there’s going to be a specific writer’s track added as well so that writer’s can further expand on talking about craft during the weekend.