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By Nicole Danielle
A Whirlwind Weekend
Earlier this month, my podcast co-host and bestie, Meghan, and I made the journey to the Milwaukee area for a whirlwind weekend. Between finishing our Victorian costumes and trying to prep for all of our adventures, I had my hands full. But I was determined and, with some help from Meghan’s mom, Colleen, we were ready to roll by Friday morning.
The Con That Shall Not Be Named
We started our weekend with the Con That Shall Not Be Named (IYKYK) on Friday. Meg and I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about what happened to this ill-fated romance convention. But we’ve always steered away from getting “political” on the podcast. All we’re gonna say about it is we’re allies and part of the LGTBQIA+ community and we chose to still attend one of the days of the controversial con.
While the swag bags were extremely lackluster (with both general and premium ticket holders getting stiffed) and the attendance was low, the spirit of the romance community was still in full swing and we met a lot of great people from fellow romances readers to authors. We attended some interesting panels and learned some things, did a little merch and book shopping, and did a mass blind date with a book swap.
From Milwaukee with Love
On Saturday, we did the book walk for From Milwaukee With Love. We schlepped our way across over 20 city blocks from Wauwatosa to Milwaukee (and back) in full Victorian costumes. And we had a blast. Many of the authors and vendors who would have been part of the Con were on the book walk. And two amazing romance bookstores – Thirst and The Well Red Damsel are located in this new “MKE Romance District.” (If you’d like to learn more about these two awesome bookstores and their fierce and fabulous owners, check out our podcast interview episode here!)
It was an absolute blast. And I don’t know about Meghan … but I bought way too many books. (I think she went into the weekend with the intention of buying all of next year’s podcast books. I went in all willy nilly without a clear plan.) We met so many great people and had fun swishing around in our taffeta and hoop skirts. We gave out buttons and bookmarks to promote the podcast and chatted with so many wonderful women.
The book walk gave me the opportunity to meet one of my FAVORITE indie authors, Emily B. Rose. I read her book, Call of the Sea for our underwater love month (May) this year and loved it. I brought my copy for her to sign and got to have a total fan girl moment. A dream come true! (You can listen to the podcast episode, Season 2 Episode 11, wherever you get your podcasts or click here for our in-house podcast player. You can also read my review of the book here.)
Best of all, we got to meet Kerrie Berg and Natasha Meyer in person. They’re the owners of Thirst and The Well Red Damsel respectively. We recently interviewed both entrepreneurs for the podcast and will feature them on Season 2 Episode 20 (airing Sept. 30) as part of our one year podcast anniversary celebration. It was absolutely worth standing in lines to meet these lovely ladies in the flesh and support their small businesses.
Mingling with Romance Writers
We also unknowingly happened to be at the right place at the right time at the end of the day when we stopped to hang out at one of the bars on the strip and ended up joining an author mingle from the book walk. Wow! What an amazing way to learn about the writing and publishing process by chatting with these women! Shawn Verdoni, Ellie Drake, Kristen Fray and Kristen Cari and I had a lovely roundtable discussion. Then Meg and I further chatted with Elizabeth Cole. I felt like the luckiest bookish biddie alive to engage with these authors who all write very differently and are at different points in their careers. From pen names to indie publishing, I got the inside scoop on so much.
Celebrating with a Bookish Biddie Brunch
Finally, we wrapped up the weekend with our Bookish Biddie Brunch on Sunday. We hosted this little soiree at Mimosa in Brookfield to celebrate our Romance on the Rocks Podcast anniversary. I made a bevy of blind dates with a book (with swag generously donated to us from author A. C. Wonderland) for our guests and Meghan added fun little art and vintage postcard take-homes as well as door prizes.
One of the attendees had homemade bracelets to share and you know I had to snag the “smut slut” one. We had loyal listeners, newly made friends from the weekend, a couple of others, and fellow romance readers attend the brunch. And it was a really lovely way to celebrate.
Cheers to Romance
While our weekend didn’t end up being what we had originally planned so many months ago, it did turn into something more magical than we could have imagined. We made new friends, celebrated our podcast anniversary, and learned ever more about the romance book world. Cheers to all the romance novel community who gathered in MKE that weekend. And cheers to one year of Romance on the Rocks!
