by Robin L.L. Allen

(From the September 2004 issue of the Update.)

How can you liven up a lengthy business trip?

Tap into the local writers groups, of course.

During a recent spate of business travel, I decided to see if I could liven up some of those boring evenings by meeting up with someone local from my online critiquing loop.

I put a note out on the loop, and sure enough, got an invitation to meet up in Minneapolis when I was out there in April. Our dinner of five dwindled down to a one-on-one with the single member who was able to accommodate my ever-changing schedule, but we had a blast chatting at an Irish pub for a couple of hours.

The Arizona loop member pointed out that my visit coincided with the monthly chapter meeting. Laurie Schnebly Campbell, a published author with the Desert Rose Chapter, asked if I would be interested in attending the meeting as well as getting together for dinner.

Absolutely.

This was fun and fascinating on many levels. It was great meeting fellow RWA members and sister chapter members—but what was REALLY amazing was finding the myriad connections that were there between our chapter and members.

The easy ones: Both Laurie and I are RWA members, local chapter members, and participants on the same writer’s loop. But there were plenty more.

Laurie made arrangements for another Desert Rose Chapter member to pick me up and take me to the meeting. That turned out to be Jennifer Ashley (writing as Ashley Gardner)—who is a critique partner to our own Glenda Garland. Jennifer was quite startled to find out that “Laurie’s friend from the loop” knew her critique partner from Washington, DC.

As a small thank you gift for the rides to and from the meeting, I gave Jennifer and Laurie signed copies of WRW member Hope Tarr’s book, Tempting. It turned out Jennifer had met Hope at the last two RT conferences and Laurie had a tape from Hope’s “10 Steps to a Kick Butt Booksigning”, a 2002 National Conference session.

When I got to the meeting, I was invited to participate in the raffle they hold every month. One of the prizes was a copy of WRW member Sherrilyn Kenyon’s latest release. Copies of the popular RT Book Review magazine that had been passed out at Desert Rose’s recent conference were available on the give-away table—yes, that would be the issue featuring WRW’s Kathy Caskie and Sophia Nash-Ours on the cover.

I got compliments on my recent article in the Update, which was apparently read by many of the chapter members via the posting at our website.

And they all knew about our Retreat, and many had attended in past years.

Attending this meeting made me realize just how interwoven our RWA (or writing) community really is. Here I was 2,300 miles from home hanging out with people who knew my friends. If you ever think your name’s not getting out there, be reassured, it is.

~~~~~
Robin L.L. Allen is the Program Coordinator for WRW. She’s working on a contemporary romantic suspense novel that is a finalist in the 2004 Maggie Contest. Robin hopes to soon add Georgia Romance Writers to the list of chapters she’s visited.