Imagine over a hundred adoring fans of romance coming together for a weekend of fun, friendship, and good food.  If you missed this year's Romance Slam Jam, you missed the treat of a lifetime.

I started my adventure on an Amtrak train.  My traveling companion was also an avid romance reader, Brenda Turner, my mother.  This was my first train ride.  I was really excited about it.  It turned out to be fantastic.  If you haven't been on a train, please take a journey one day.  It is so peaceful and you get to relax instead of rushing.

After checking into the hotel, we ran into Rochelle Alers, Donna Hill and Vivica Caryle, we shared a few laughs and hugs and agreed to meet later.

We quickly changed and we went down to the Slam Jam registration.  Authors and readers were everywhere.  Looking over the program for the weekend, I found the list of authors who would be attending this event.  I didn't know who to introduce myself to.

I met a few new friends and smiled at a beautiful woman who looked familiar to me.  She smiled back as she was in a conversation with two other women.  I had decided that I was not leaving this conference until I met Brenda  Jackson and Beverly Jenkins, who was the keynote speaker for the conference.  These writers were on my favorite list and where the only ones I hadn't met in person.

Everyone kept mentioning Beverly was here, but since I didn't know what she looked like I didn't have a clue where to look.  Finally I asked a lady who Beverly was.  Guess who she pointed out?  The beautiful lady who had smiled at me.

I introduced myself and we hugged.  She remembered me from the interview for the online conference.  Oh my goodness, I had met Beverly Jenkins.  She was just as warm and friendly in person as she was on the phone, and she reminded me of an African Queen.

We went inside the hotel ballroom for our meet and mingle session.  We sat at round tables and introduced ourselves to our table mates.  I glanced around to see if I knew anyone or could find any of the ladies from the Aspiring African-American Romance and The Color Of Romance Forum.

Gwen Osborn, (AKA The Word Diva) introduced herself and Coweyes (Angel Cason), Theresa from TX (Teresa Pettergrew), Shaun Williams (Lerricks), Debra Ross and Alda found me among the masses and we became fast friends.  How wonderful it was to meet such unique women who I'd been communicating with over the net.  Of course we took  tons of pictures.

I even met Irmines of Irmines Books (Marie).  She was a lot younger than I'd imagine she'd be, but I guess that's the internet for you.  You have no clue how people look because all you do is read their words. 

These romance readers came in all shapes and sizes and were all beautiful in their own ways.  They were definitely the Shades Of Romance (Catch the plug)

During the meet and mingle I met Gail Mcfarland, Jackie Thomas, Kayla Perrin, Diedra Savoy, Margie Walker, Maggie Ferguson, Linda Hudson-Smith, Evelyn Palfrey, Anna Laurence, and the one I'd been dying to meet, Brenda Jackson.  Who is too cute.  It was a dream come true for an aspiring writer to mingle with the writers.

My mother told me later that I was working the room like a pro.  Talking about some serious networking.  I made sure to introduce myself to everyone I hadn't met in person.

For the first night of events we had a trivia game, Guess The Author and Title Of The Book.  Of course I was horrible at it because I never remember titles.  After reading over a hundred romances, how can you remember all the titles?

The next event was having members of the audience perform skits from different romance novels.  This I believe was the best part of the evening.  We all agreed that Rochelle Hardy and her hunk portrayal of Corinthians and Trent were the best.

After the skits we listen to Arabesque Publisher speak about literacy.  She gave us an advance screening of Hidden Blessing.  I actually like the movie.  I think maybe it was because I hadn't read the book.  It debuted in April, so you tell me what you thought about it.

After the movie, we went up to change into something more comfortable and came down for a literary circle were we discussed our favorite romances, hunks and authors.  Of course I plugged the forum and bragged about our soon to be published members.

I don't know how I got any sleep that night because I was so hyped of from the evening.  I couldn't believe I was actually here in Dallas.

The following day was set aside for workshops and to meet the authors for autograph signing.  In the hallway outside the workshops were booths set up for all the writers.

I'd brought plenty of money to buy all the books I was missing and any new ones I hadn't heard about.  I got most of them autographed along with a picture of the author.

I caught the last 15 minutes of the Marketing workshop being held by Deirdre Savoy and Linda Hudson-.  I'm glad I did.  I got a lot of information in that short time.

The second workshop I attended was the Publisher vs Self Publishing.  This workshop was presented by Francis Ray and Evelyn Palfrey.  It was very good.  Showing the pros and cons of publishing through a publisher vs self publishing. 

We had a special guest attend this conference, Monique Patterson, an Editor at Avon Books.  Avon was looking for new writers and of course I took a copy of her guidelines and asked a few questions.

The lunch was delicious, but the keynote speaker was absolutely fabulous.  Beverly Jenkins blew us away with her speech.  Not only is she a wonderful story teller, bust she's an excellent speaker, who makes sure to give you a little history lesson too.

The evening program consisted of more trivia and doorprizes.  I was lucky in one of the doorprize drawings and won some earrings.  There was a great fashion show with clothes to die for, and to close it out was a poetry program that made you reminisce the movie, Love Jones.  We had the clicking of the fingers as we listen to some of the passionate poetry.

Again that night I wondered how I slept.  I didn't want it to end.  I spent the next morning talking pictures and saying goodbye to my new friends.  It was the best birthday weekend of my life.  I left inspired to write the next best seller and with a feeling that our romance writers are just as wonderful as the characters they create. 

The Romance Slam Jam 2000 was the first time African-American Romance Writers and readers had come together.  It was a huge success.  Much props go out to the Black Noir Bookclub and Bookstore, who put in a lot of hard work to make this event a success.

I'm looking forward to Romance 2001 which will be held in Orlando, FL, March 2-4, 2001.

RSJ 2001
5239 S. John Young Pkwy. Suite 154
Orlando, FL. 32839

I hope to see you there.  Check out their web page for more information. http://members.aol.com/RomanceSlamJam/index.htm

LaShaunda C. Hoffman is the host of Aspiring African-American Romance Writers forum and the publisher of Shades Of Romance Magazine.  She is also an aspiring romance writer.

She is organizing a bus trip from St. Louis, MO to next year's Slam Jam in Florida.  If interested in riding contact her at:
romreaders@mail.com