Conventions Worth Going To: RT Booklovers Convention

As an author, aspiring author, or a reader, there's so many conventions out there that it can be hard to decide which ones to go to.  I have two small children, so I decided a few years ago that I would choose one non-local convention a year to attend, and after asking around, I picked RT.

Lydia Kang and me at the YA authors social at RT.

The RT Booklovers Convention is more or less a hybrid genre convention, in that it's ostensibly a romance con, but it has a massive Young Adult contingent, from the YA Alley at the Giant Book Fair, to multiple panels on writing craft, business, publishing, and fun meet-the-author style events.

The Long Game in Publishing panel with (from left to right) Julie Murphy, Sophie Jordan, Molly Jaffa, Rachel Caine, Tessa Gratton, and Whitney Ross.

But RT is a hybrid convention in more ways that one.  While a lot of conventions for writers are typically writer/industry only, like RWA or BEA, RT is a writer and reader convention.  Which means you have a chance to interact with your readers more than you ever would anywhere else, which to me, makes it the convention worth going to.  You get to network, promote and geek out all at the same place.  And did I mention all the books?  THERE'S A LOT OF BOOKS INVOLVED.

I mean, like a LOT.

So, if you're shopping around for conventions, I highly, highly recommend RT.  (And next year it's in Vegas.  So you know.  VEGAS.)