A Very Peachy Few Days

I'm home from Georgia and already want to go back.

How could I not have a good time, being chauffeured by the lovely and talented, Elizabeth Dulemba? e is an illustrator AND young adult novelist and bombs around Atlanta in Otis. 

We went from the airport to the hotel where I freshened up and then straight to Fox Brother's Barbecue where mac-and-cheese counts as a vegetable. Who knew?

the veggie plate

Thursday morning, the sun was shining when e and Otis came to pick me up. After a bit of poking around in Five Points, complete with photo op at the Vortex, 

I got the driving tour of Atlanta, including Martin Luther King's birthplace, 

and Centennial Park (the site of the 1996 Olympics). We were famished after all that so HAD to stop for Chicken and Waffles at Gladys Knight's restaurant (I skipped the waffles, but enjoyed some yummy collard greens). 

The afternoon was spent in the charming town of Decatur. I absolutely fell in love and am scheming to get back. Can we say Georgia Bookfest, 2013?!!! We stopped in to meet the folks at Little Shop of Stories, where Marcy was THRILLED that I was able to scribble my John Hancock on her copy of Hattie Big Sky, adding yet another title to her collection of signed Newberys; she has 300 of the nearly 400 books, since the award began. Isn't that something? The store is light and cheerful and I bought a copy of Ruth White's Way Down Deep

  (which I read on the plane on the way home and it is an absolute dee-light!)

We got a cool drink at the Square Bar's Magic Table (at least, I think that's where we were); so called because, if you are lucky enough to snag it during the Georgia Bookfest, you will see all of the famous authors pass by.

Dinner was tapas at the Iberian Pig, where Vicky Alvear Shecter, author of Cleopatra's Moon, joined us.

Then it was off to bed to be ready for my pre-conference intensive. Forty hearty souls stuck with me all day Friday as we looked at different ways to revise and finish their novels. My Saturday morning keynote was well-received, and I had a great time at lunch, helping to celebrate all the new books by Southern Breeze members in the past year. 

That evening, at the book signing, I signed my first ereader -- and then someone in line said there is actually an app for signing them. I'll have to look into that, I guess.

Sunday went much too quickly and before I knew it, I was on a plane heading home. I may have missed the Oscars but I was inspired by the conference to spend part of the plane ride writing ten pages of something completely new. 

What a weekend!