Since getting published, I've attended a lot of cons: BoucherCon, NorwesCon, Bubonicon, RT, ThrillerFest.  But this last weekend was my first AWP Annual Conference--a really big event as you can see by the crowd packing the Colorado Convention Center.  

The difference between AWP and the rest (besides the lack of costumes) is that AWP is a literary con: lots of poets, literary magazines, small press, writing programs.  I was there because my short story had been published in Hit List: The Best of Latino Mystery.  I got to meet several of the other contributors--Sergio Troncoso, Dr. Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Manuel Ramos, and Sarah Cortez when we read excerpts of our stories at a panel.  Being writers, afterwards we gabbed about writing while we drank.  La Bloga was there in force and read what contributor RudyG posted.  Here I am with Manuel Ramos and RudyG at one of the many receptions putting calluses on our livers.

Sunday, Biting-Edge deployed to the Englewood Library for their Meet the Faces Behind the Books author shmooze.  Jeanne and I ran into a lot of familiar faces to include a couple of our all-time favorite writers: the accomplished Carrie Vaughn (left) of Kitty the Werewolf series, and writing dynamo Lynda Sandoval (right), scribe of YA, romance, and non-fiction. 

Carrie has a new YA book, Voice of Dragons.

Lynda has burned it up with the hilarious Unsettling.

Once you get published, people think life is all gravy from there.  Sorry to disappoint, but if you want to survive as a working writer, then get used to rejection.  Multi-published Megan Hart vlogs about a recent experience over at her blog with Laura Dane, danehart.com.

We Denverites think of Westword as the last word in cool but alas, those hipsters at Seattle's the Stranger manage to pull ahead of us.  Now there are a lot of gimmicks to entice the public to a book signing but here's one that escaped me: Fleshing Out the Narrative, naked ladies reading science fiction.  Photo by David Peterman.

Wheels are churning, wheels are churning.