Topic: Lori Foster Get Together #1

4th Annual Lori Foster Reader-Author Get Together, Part One

Location: West Chester Marriot Ohio
Dates: Friday, 06 June 2008 – Sunday, 08 June 2008
Attendance: Approx. 270 (approx. 107 of which were authors)

First off, let me just say that the hotel was GREAT! After all my bitching about the Hilton at RT Con 2008, the Marriot was superb, even if I wasn’t comparing them. The best part is that Lori Foster has her get together in the same hotel every year. How nice is that?

Anywho, the convention.

Stephanie “Flash” Burke, Joy of Joyfully Reviewed, and I drove together to Ohio for the event. We had fun yapping with each other. Flash and I were roomies. We parted ways with Joy once we got there and hooked back up to head home.

Day Zero: Thursday, 05 June

We got on the road early morning, not as early as we’d planned, to head for Camille Anthony’s place. Since she lives in Akron. The plan was to go there, spend the night, and then head out to the Marriot 2 hours away. That’s what we did.

It was nice to have a day of hanging out before the real event and though we’d planned to pile everyone into one car, two cars was a god send later (you’ll see why) and not because we had a lot of stuff.

Day One: Friday, 06 June

The original plan was to get out of the house at 6am so we missed rush hour and could get to the hotel in time for the bag stuffing at 11am. Well, we didn’t leave at 6am. I don’t remember what time we left but we got to the hotel at 11:3o/40. Flash and I checked in real fast, parked the car and started playing catch up.

Since the bag stuffing had already started, Flash and I had to backtrack thru the already finished bags and place ours. Once we caught up, it just made more sense to stay where we were rather than trying to squeeze in with the assembly line. It worked out and we got our promo in the bags.

Once that was finished, we unloaded the car and got acquainted with our room, which was huge. We didn’t have a fridge, but didn’t really need it.

Room secure, we headed out for food and to track down the Barnes & Noble I’d seen (Flash was too busy driving to see it) on the way to the hotel. Well, we got a little turned around. We found a Chipotle to eat at, since Flash had never been. Well, she regretted it later since her stomach doesn’t like Mexican as much as she does. ;P

We were able to track down the B&N a little quicker once hunger wasn’t distracting us. There were tons of restaurants and shops around it. We’ll remember that for next year. Flash was on a swimsuit hunt since she wanted to use the pool, but all the places we visited were too expensive or didn’t have any. So, we decided to track down a Wal-Mart later.

Registration was that night at 6pm and I got a little surprise. I’m with Author Island promotions. DeNita Tuttle, the owner of Author Island, decided to give away a Kindle. The people who wanted to qualify for the drawing had to go around getting author signatures. When I said I’d chip in for the Kindle, I didn’t know that’s what DeNita had planned and was totally confused when the first person came up to me with the signature paper.

Well, I laughed it off and said what the heck. It’s face time with potential readers and that’s what DeNita wanted for us. Flash decided to point me out to everyone, ensuring I’d be mobbed. She thought that was hilarious since something similar had happened to her at her first RT Con a few years back.

Because of a late start and traffic, Wendi Felter (owner of Red Rose Publishing) wasn’t at the post-registration dinner. Camille stepped up and did the publisher introduction while Flash took on her potential authors pitch appointments. Wendi did get there later and she was very annoyed by with the cause of her delay. We all sympathized.

After food, Flash and I headed out to Wal-Mart. She still didn’t find a swimsuit she liked. I was on the look out for a phone charger, since I had rushed out the house and left mine. It was one item on a long list of things I’d left at home. I have a remedy for that though.

TBC…