RT Convention 2012

Wow you guys. I had a FANTASTIC time at the RT Convention 2012 in Chicago!! I only went on Saturday for the book fair and and workshops, but it was truly amazing! I met some fabulous authors and totally awesome bloggers. The day was full of some surreal moments (like when an author wanted to take a picture with ME instead of the other way around.. squeeee!!) and even a little danger (anyone remember that lethal game of spoons?!). It was such a great experience. I can't wait to do something like this again! Here's my day in photos.. enjoy!

First of all, I met Jacinda and Jasmine from Reading Housewives and Laci from Blog-O-Rama!! These fantastic ladies kindly adopted me for the day since I came alone. I have friends and family in the northern Illinois area, but no one went with me. I'm so glad I met them and hung out with them all day! I also got to meet some other bloggers pretty briefly, like Jamie from Broke and the Bookish, Jen from Makeshift Bookmark, and Anna from Anna Reads! Everyone was SO great!

These pictures were from the inside before you walked into the big book fair area. Lovely posters of upcoming novels and such. There were vendor tables and stuff everywhere too. Fun stuff!



So we get into the book fair area, and it looks like THIS! Chaos, lots of people, authors, lines, BOOKS everywhere! Oh my goodness.. so overwhelming.

Here's another shot of the crowd, and you can see Aprilynne Pike up front on the left and Stephanie Perkins on the right (with the awesome bright red hair).

First stop was.. RICHELLE MEAD!

We caught her as she was eating.. sorry, girl! But thanks to Jacinda for this funny shot. :o)

She signed my books and was very lovely. It was a little surreal to be in her presence. She's like a goddess in my mind. Love her! She was sitting next to Melissa Marr, and some other awesome authors were in that show. See this picture below:

In this one, you can see Veronica Roth and Melissa de la Cruz among others :o) YAY!

Then I met some author awesome others. I didn't get pictures of/with them all, but I'll post some autographed stuff at the end of this one so you can see those too. Here are some of those pictures:

Jennifer L. Armentrout

It was really great meeting her! We've chatted on Twitter and stuff, and I love her books!!

Amalie Howard.
(OH my goodness. She's amazing. Chatted with me for a while! And SHE wanted the author next to her to take a picture with HER phone of us. OMG. How crazy!? She's so fantastic.)

Sophie Jordan.

After the book fair, we went to some workshops with panels of authors talking about writing books. It was refreshing to hear authors sounding so passionate about writing. I was glad to hear all the info they had because I've been so lacking in my reading lately. Really made me want to go home and inhale some books! Here's pictures of those:


FROM SPARK TO FIRE: INTERACTIVE WORLD AND CHARACTER-BUILDING WORKSHOP: Kelley Armstrong, Nancy Holder, Beth Revis, Veronica Roth, Margaret Stohl, Cinda Williams Chima, and Melissa Marr.

FEEDING THE FIRE: CONFLICT AND ACTION IN YA NOVELS: Melissa de la Cruz, Cinda Williams Chima, Kami Garcia, Richelle Mead, Alyson Noël, and Aprilynne Pike.

Then I won the following book in a very perilous and highly competitive game of spoons at the CANDY AND SPOONS party hosted by Entangled Publishing!

After all that we went to the Teen Day Party and got some more free books and swag. It was a really great day. My shoulders were so sore from hauling all my stuff around, but it was not a bad problem to have, really. Here are some pictures of the stuff I got!

A lot of that swag was signed by the authors, too. It was such a great day! That wasn't even all of the stuff. I found some more stuff placed in books and my purse from throughout the day. I can't even remember where I put it all. It was really hard to stay organized!! Haha.

Here are the books I brought from home and got signed:

Richelle Mead
Succubus Blues / Succubus Revealed

Stephanie Perkins:
Anna and the French Kiss / Lola and the Boy Next Door

Kimberly Derting
The Body Finder / Desires of the Dead

Jennifer L. Armentrout
Pure / Obsidian

Veronica Roth - Divergent ARC
Ally Carter - I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You

They said only two books per author so I left quite a few at home. Not everyone followed that rule, and even the authors said it would have been just fine to bring more. Some lines were so long they needed a wrist band method, like Anne Rice, Charlaine Harris, and JR Ward. It was so hectic but so great!

AHHHHHHH. This was such a great day!!! I ended it with visiting friends from back home (since I'm from the Chicago area) and that was so awesome. I haven't seen them in SO long. The whole day was just absolutely amazing. I was exhausted by the time it was over, but it was all SOOOO worth it! I hope anyone else who went had a fantastic time. And I hope anyone who didn't get to go can go next year!