Meeting an Icon

 One of the highlights of Love is Murder was an accidental meeting with Anne Perry, whom I had never met. Not only is she elegant and lovely, but she is a charming and humorous conversationalitst. The problem with reading someone's books before you meet the person is that you tend to give that person icon status, and then can become totally tongue-tied at one of these conventions, and might feel undeserving to breathe the same air as said icon.

But Anne Perry and the other "big name authors" that I met made me see that they do not necessarily feel this way about themselves, and are perfectly willing to mix and mingle with us lowly first-timers. :)

Even in an average dialogue, though, Anne has a way with words, and it seems inevitable that she became an author. She gave a lovely keynote speech at the dinner on Saturday night, and now I am even more of a fan.

Here she poses with Lonnie Cruse (left) and me.