It’s Conference Time again, Writer Friends! I’m off to Houston to attend the Houston Writer’s Guild fall conference. I’ll get to meet Jennifer Mattson, my friend Kim Norman’s agent, and gush about how awesome Kim is. (She is a rhyming genius.) I even get to stay with an old family friend — and take my mom along for the ride. While I’m hobnobbing with the literati glitterati, Mom will be studying for some seriously scary acupuncture finals (she’s getting the equivalent of a PhD in acupuncture for infertility treatment). Of course, we will shop ever so slightly on the way there…

Exciting things have been going on in my life. First, I bought the shoes I have been wanting since I was four years old.* (When my Grandma would take me to Solo Serve in San Antonio for school shoes every August, I would put shoes exactly like this on and teeter around the section until Grandma forced me to take them off, informing me very matter-of-factly that “those shoes were for hookers.” For a long time, hooker was at the top of my secret career list, just for the shoes. I didn’t really get what the rest of the job entailed. 😉 )

Second — and speaking of Grandmas — I had a very nice email from the editor of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series (the Grandmother edition) letting me know that my essay, Silver Hair and Snickerdoodles, should appear in the March 2011 anthology. (No confetti just yet, these things take time. A lot can happen before March.)

Last, I’m pretty sure I’ll have Holy Toast ready for readers in a few weeks (I slipped a little on the timing due to some work-for-hire for another editor), so get your tickets now! Oh, and I promise to have your manuscripts critiqued very, very soon. All of you, my darlings.

(By the way, did you know I’m teaching Zumba 6 or 7 times a week now? If I keep shaking my booty like this, it’ll fall off!)

Write well, Friends, and wear fabulous shoes while you do it.

* The shoes I got are much cuter, but you get the general idea.