Annyeonghaseyo, peeps! I hope you've been having a fabulous summer. 
This past weekend while the annual SCBWI conference was being held in LA, I decided to take advantage of the chance to mingle with writing friends in a place far, far cooler than Texas (110 degrees...the nerve!)

I turned it into a critique weekend with chums Cheri & Rachel. We met to critique each other's manuscripts on Friday, plot our novels on Saturday and do free writing on Sunday:


Friday night once everyone had finished their sessions for the day, I met up with fab editor Liesa Abrams and some writer peeps at Rock Sugar.
(From l-r: Alan Silberberg, Shannon Messenger, Hillary Homzie, me, and James Riley. Liesa was womaning the camera)


Later in the lobby, I ran into agency sisters, Erin Jade Lange and Kristen Kittscher.

We talked of iPhone auto-corrects (Mine changes "I am anal-retentive" to "I am anal detective") and the plethora of men at the conference (Plethora=more than 2, in this case).

Saturday, I caught up with long-time conference pal Jody Feldman over lunch and even more of my agency sisters over dinner:
(From l-r: Erin Jade Lange, Whitney Miller, me, Kristen Kittscher. Martha Flynn was kind enough to take the photo)

This time the subject was marketing a new release, and we brainstormed ideas for upcoming debuts, as well as how and what conferences to get into.
Later, after I'd changed into fashionable PJs and gone to sleep, I was roused by music coming from outside. I ventured onto the back lawn and spotted Stephanie Ruble and a whole slew of other people milling about in their pajamas. Those crazy LA folks!:


Me, Cynthea Liu, Cindy Pon:


Me and girl-boyfriend Sophia Chang


I saw this restaurant and couldn't pass it up. Who doesn't love cheese?
Note: Kristen's finger gun is not actually loaded.


Here's the lady behind SCBWI's annual photo montage, Rita Crayon Huang.


She's always with camera, except for here:


If you'll notice, I haven't named any of the people in the photo. Because they're part of