The RITAs, the Romance Writers of America’s awards for best books of the year, as judged by their peers, were presented last Saturday night. It’s always a gala occasion and the sequin fallout in Atlanta must have been something to behold.

Even better to behold were a couple of the winners — Marion Lennox for writing the Best Traditional Romance of the Yearand Liz Fielding for the Best Short Contemporary! Both Marion and Liz are second-time winners, too, which tells you something about the level of quality of their books.

My dear friend Anne Gracie, whose own wonderful The Perfect Rake, was also a RITA finalist this year, was on hand at Marion’s for a champagne celebration and has sent me a wonderful photo of RITA, Marion, Mitzi (the one with all the hair) and Anne herself (as she says, “attempting to steal RITA). I do notice that it is Anne who is holding RITA while Marion gets to prop up the champagne swilling dog. But now that the celebration is over, I have been assured that RITA is still in Marion’s possession. Wish I’d been there!

If you haven’t read The Marriage Miracle, Liz’s winner, or Princess of Convenience, Marion’s RITA winner, track them down. They are great reads.

Congrats to both Marion and Liz and all the winners of this year’s RITA competition. And to all the finalists, congratulations, too, because you all wrote terrific books.

The virtual party at Lucy’s blog has ended as all good things must. We have come back to earth and are hard at work again. I’m happy to report that the 146th take was the one I’d been waiting for — the one that means Spence and Sadie are finally off the blinkin’ airplane — and we can get on with the story. (I hope).

In the meantime, there is still a day to sign up to win a copy of The Great Montana Cowboy Auction. So if you haven’t dropped me a note at anne.mcallister(at)gmail.com or signed up on the comments page here, please do so and I’ll put you in the drawing. The winner will be posted the evening of August 1st, and she will have 24 hours to contact me. If she doesn’t, another winner will be chosen. Gunnar is getting excited about this because he is the one who gets to pick winners.

First, business:

For those of you who have dropped in from Lucy Monroe’s party, welcome, and please leave a comment or email if you want to join the drawing for a copy of THE GREAT MONTANA COWBOY AUCTION which ends August 1. And anyone who didn’t drop in from Lucy’s, if you want to take part in the drawing, do the same. I’ll post the winner the evening of August 1st. You will then have 24 hours to contact me to claim your prize.

It was great at Lucy’s. We had a blast. And I met lots of really fun and interesting readers and writers. I hope some of you who met me there will continue to drop in here. Always glad to have visitors!

Now then, airplanes.
Spence and Sadie (we remember them, don’t we, class?) have been on a blinkin’ airplane for the last eight days. They have disembarked at least ten times. They have spent, conservatively, 10,000 words getting off the damn plane. And they haven’t done it right yet. I feel like the director shouting, “Take 145! Roll ‘em!” And we go through it again. How many ways are there, for heaven’s sake?

Skip it, you say? Tried that. Can’t. Need a particular thing to happen during the getting off the plane. Can’t make it happen elsewhere. No time. Apparently Spence and Sadie think that we have all the time in the world. They would be wrong. We don’t. We have exactly 20 days to get this right, get this book finished and get on a plane ourselves to go to The Son’s Wedding.

So, back to the drawing board. Take 146, here we come.

Back in April I wrote about Jess Harper, my childhood crush. He was the character played by Robert Fuller on the TV program Laramie. The program was good (and has stood the test of time rather better than many westerns of its day). But Jess was better.

Well, today I wrote about Jess again on Lucy Monroe’s party blog. And I wrote about Hugh-in-a-towel, because the appreciation of a good man doesn’t die an early death, believe me.

Coincidentally it’s Robert Fuller’s birthday today (as well as the birthday of my one and only granddaughter!) and also the day my book The Stardust Cowboy won the RITA at the RWA National conference in 2000 when it was in Washington DC.

It actually beat my own Gibson’s Girl which was also a finalist in the same category that year. So . . . a very good day indeed. Coincidentally, too, there is another RITA award being given tonight. I wish all the contestants good luck. I’ll be keeping an eye on the proceedings (albeit from a distance this year).

In the meantime, happy birthday, Bob. Happy birthday, Grandkid. Happy RITA, Riley and Dori.

Back to Spence, who is driving me insane!