I’ve been babbling about the upcoming workshop/cocktail party/Love Between the Covers events for a while on social media (and even in a previous post here), so I’ll spare you the details again.

Other than to say a few things about the Cocktail Party with Authors and Readers, that is . . . It’s going to be fun. Damon Suede and Geoff Symon (presenters for the workshop, and oh yeah, life partners) will be there, along with a long list of local authors, including moi. Tickets are $20 per person, which gets you in and gets you appetizers and swag from authors, but the bar is no-host (and cash only, I believe).

Twenty bucks sound a little steep when you don’t even get free booze (the appetizers rock, though, trust me—I picked them)? Then let me encourage you to enter this drawing for a ticket to the Cocktail Party.

However, if you don’t win a ticket, let me take a moment to tell you why you might want to pay to play. Because you respect romance. That’s what we’ll be celebrating at this cocktail party: the importance of romance (novels) in our lives. Reading is generally a solitary activity, but I find romance novels themselves to create a kind of social glue. Like other persecuted minorities (okay, yes, totally reaching, but you know it’s a tiny bit true), romance novel lovers stick together. We’ve created a community. If you’re part of that community, come party with us. You’re more than welcome.

I have a little more to say about respecting romance . . . In the coming days I’ll be posting a lot about romance and the respect it doesn’t get. I have an endless stream of ranty monologues I’ve composed on the subject. But as everyone knows, a picture is worth a thousand words (or at least we’ve all heard that saying). From what I’ve seen, the adage generally bears out to be true, (except in romance novels, which, if they were picture books, just might be labeled as porn), so guess what? My local RWA chapter, Rose City Romance Writers, had a bunch of pictures taken of us reading and enjoying romance novels. Oh, looky there, I’ve included a couple with this post.

Interestingly, though, all the pictures (taken by the lovely and nubile Mark Montoya) have  #RespectRomance on them. So I guess maybe a picture is worth a thousand words, but a picture with a catchy hashtag is worth a few hundred more?

All right, done babbling.