James O. Born ate my chicken

I went to the Suncoast Writer's Conference this week and although the highlights should probably be that I met Billy Collins, U.S. Poet Laureate, and listened to some great stuff by Augusten Burroughs -- I'm at least most amused that I sat next to James O. Born at dinner and he asked to eat the chicken that I didn't touch due to food allergies that are too boring to go into. Mind you, his first words to me were not, "are you going to eat that?" We had struck up a friendly conversation first. But when he signed his book for me today, he wrote, "Thanks for dinner." I guess you had to be there but I was amused. Still am. If that was the most amusing thing, my favorite things were: 1) meeting Kitty and Jennifer O'Neil, authors of Funky Shui. They are funny and engaging and their book is great too. 2) meeting (again) Sheree Bykofsky, an author, agent, and poker shark. She's the type of agent I hope to land one day. Two of her authors are Kitty and Jennifer O'Neil. (It's a small, small world.)