I have so many stories about my encounters with other Dreamspinner authors that stand out to me as special—like meeting KC Burn and ZA Maxfield, my breakfast bunch, before each RWA meeting every month; the first time I ran into Eli Easton in the lobby of a Portland hotel and had a fangirl meltdown on the spot; or the amazing brainstorming breakfast with Poppy Dennison at RT the year we came up with ideas for Dreamspun Desires. But one of my most heartfelt moments was my first meeting with the amazing BA Tortuga and Julia Talbot. I had read them, heard about them, and seen them from afar. Then one year at the Dreamspinner Author Workshop, they came, and I watched them with admiring eyes. My pal KC Burn and I went to lunch at the one restaurant at the hotel that was open at that time of day, and almost every table was full. KC spotted BA and Julia and said, “Let’s go see if we can join them.” I almost stopped her! After all, they were cool; I wasn’t. They had tattoos, for God’s sake! They were this amazing couple, and I was just a newbie het author presuming to write gay romance. Would they even talk to me? We went to their table, most gregarious of people, feeling very shy, and I remember that lunch as one of the most fun revelations of my life. I discovered that not only were they ultimately cool, but they were and are also the sweetest, nicest, most inclusive humans on the planet, and from that moment I counted them among my most admired and valued friends!

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Celebration of Community: Eli Easton and Jamie Fessenden

Celebration of Community: Damon Suede, Tere Michaels, Victoria Sue, and KC Burn

Celebration of Community: Renae Kaye and Sean Kennedy