Saints and Sinners Friday

Friday was all (well, mostly) business as we got down to the brass tacks of what we are here for—the master classes. I attended two great sessions: “The Power of the Short Story” taught by Jess Wells, known for her historical fiction, and a “Blueprint on Novel Writing” class with Michael Nava, author of the Henry Rios mysteries. And I got a signed book from Nava. 

But the day wasn’t all academics. It never is around here – your Out in Print guys had a marvelous breakfast with Lethe Press owner/publisher/enfant terrible Steve Berman at the Bourbon Orleans getting updates on our personal publishing efforts, lunch at the Clover Grill and dinner at the Chartres House Café with many of the authors appearing in my anthology of gay circus erotica, Tented: Gay Erotic Tales from the Big Top. I even got a chance to show off the images of the cover that I got earlier from Steve Berman!

But we didn’t just schmooze in restaurants over meals – we also schmoozed at the opening party, Glitter with the Literati, which took place in the quarter at the historic (and what house isn’t historic around here?) Hermann-Grima House on St. Louis Street where we munched and vodka-cranberried our way through the wonderful assortment of authors and publishers. 

Today promises to be even busier as there are panels scheduled ranging from “Marketing/Social Media” to “You Think You Know Us: Keeping It Real For Young Audiences” to “Writing Our History: Past and Present.” In addition, there’s the Saints and Sinners Reading Series, where we can hear authors reading from their work. But at 4 p.m., Bill Holden, Dale Chase, Gavin Atlas, Ron Suresha, myself and Fiona Zedde will be reading from our erotic works. And later on tonight Dale and I are reading our stories from Ron Suresha’s Bears in the Wild. 

It’s going to be a busy but fun day – you’ll hear all about it tomorrow, except for the sordid liasons upstairs at the Phoenix. You’ll have to e-mail me for those details.