Mini-reunion with some Clarion buddies

Last night I had a great time meeting up with two of my Clarion buddies. My daughter and my friend Cathy were there, too -- an embarrassment of riches! It was amazing to immediately feel again that closeness my writing buddies and I had at the time (we may or may not have become friends in ordinary circumstances, although I suspect that we probably would have; in the Clarion setting we became almost family). We shared jokes, caught up on our writer-lives and our mundane-lives, simultaneously rejoiced and commiserated that so many of our other Clarion buddies were selling stories (and we, by corollary, were not). We heard readings by a couple of YA fantasy authors, which Margaret in particular enjoyed very much. I got to show off how cool my kid and my friend are.

A good evening. A very good evening.

The whole day, in fact, was great, and included going to "Behind the Emerald Curtain" (a "making-of" presentation about the fabulous musical Wicked), visits to a couple of bookstores and the Mac Store, pizza, b'stilla, and lots of walking around NYC. Best of all was that I got to spend so much time with my friends and daughter, though.