Okay, I know. I suffer from that affliction so many Texans (and even transplanted Californians who’ve lived here long enough) share in common: I love me some Texas. And this weekend, at the Texas Book Festival, I was feeling the love. I alternated between feeling extremely proud of my hometown (y’all, Austin is gorgeous this time of year), excited at the line-up of authors who came to speak and sign books, and amazed that a world-class festival like this was FREE! (I love me some free stuff, too.)

I attended panels with authors like Libba Bray (who is so funny she SHOULD charge admission), Sara Zarr, Jessica Lee Anderson, and Varian Johnson (The Mod). Their personalities alone made you want to rush out and buy their books! Going Bovine is next on the list… Fave moment: Listening to Sara and Libba break spontaneously into Whitney Houston’s The Greatest Love of All and, when they turned the song over to Jessica, instread of singing, she muttered dead-pan — “Tequila.”

I sat in on the “Heroes” middle-grade talk with K.A. Holt, Rene Saldana, Jr., and debut author Aaron Starmer. I did my part to halt the Decline of the Novel by buying 2 of their books. One was Starmer’s new MG Dweeb. All you had to do was hear him read a chapter, and it was a done deal. I’m planning to read it, and steal as much of his magic as I can.

At mother-daughter writing team Kristin and P.C. Cast‘s panel, I would stop between bouts of laughter to look around, wondering if everyone else thought they were as hilarious, charming, bawdy, and gloriously real as I did. Their most interesting piece of advice for writers? Make all the changes your editor wants. Then, after you’re in copy-edits, go back in and take them out if you feel strongly about it. The editor never reads it again at that point, according to these gals. Hmmmm. Sneaky. I like it. Not that I would EVER think of doing such a thing….Big congrats to the Casts for getting their books banned in some Texas school districts. That should drive your sales up!

My oldest son attended the talk by Rick Riordan and Peter Lerangis — authors of many of his favorite books — and Cam even got called on by Mr. Riordan to ask a question.  Cam kept winking at me and pointing to the stage, whispering “That’s you someday, Mom.” Now wouldn’t THAT be a dream come true.

Lunch with the Blueboarders was fun, and I bought far too many books afterward. Oh, well. Better than a drug habit, and ever-so-slightly cheaper.

I’m off to New York in two days for the Backspace Conference where I will meet my agent, Suzie Townsend, for the first time, and discover if she is the type of agent who would like a Snuggie or a bottle of Dom Perignon for Christmas. Me? I’m kind of a “glass-of-Dom-in-my-Snuggie” gal.

Not that I have a Snuggie, of course. Ridiculous things. Can’t believe anyone would ever buy such a thing.