Southern Festival of Books: a Namedropping Recap

Saturday I spoke and signed at the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, Tennessee. I've been to Nashville often in the last ten years, and every time I go back I'm more and more impressed with the city--and this after growing up in Knoxville, Tennessee and visiting Nashville maybe three times in those twenty years. (For you non-Tennesseans, East Tennessee, Middle Tennessee, and Western Tennessee are such separate geographic and cultural regions that loyalties and divisions run deep--and each is represented by one of the three stars on Tennessee's flag. See? You didn't know you were going to get a history lesson today, did you?)

The best thing about the festival was reconnecting with old friends and making new ones. I spoke on a mystery panel with Tracy Barrett (above) and moderator Helen Hemphill, caught up with Candie Moonshower and Patricia Wiles at the SCBWI booth, shanghaied SCBWI friend Linda Ragsdale and her daughter Jessie at the children's pavilion, said hey to Wilmoth Foreman in passing in the parking garage, saw former colleagues Ginger Clark, Tamara Crabtree, and Tom Post from my old Davis-Kidd/Joseph-Beth days, ran into fellow Knoxville theater scene alum Julie Walker Danielson who has a blog that you may have heard of, chatted with old acquaintances David Mcinnis Gill and Varian Johnson, talked first books with SCBWI friend Kristin O'Donnell Tubb, ate dinner with Bill Householder and his wife Laura, and stayed up past the point of weariness talking with new BFFs Laurel Snyder and Jenny Meyerhoff. (And with all that, I'm sure I'm still forgetting someone. Sorry! Whoever you are, you're still my bestest friend ever!)