We are happy to introduce to you our next featured author for our 2017 GRL blog tour. Today we have author Jenna Kendrick joining us to talk about her GRL experience.
Don’t forget to check out Jenna her new releases and the fabulous Giveaway she brought for our readers.
Welcome Jenna 🙂
Five Days with My Tribe – Jenna Kendrick
From the moment the registration date is announced, my excitement for GRL begins to build. Even though the actual retreat is more than half a year away, there’s always something to do that keeps it in mind. Booking my flight. Brainstorming swag ideas. Deciding how to get everything out there (this year I’m shlepping my print books with me, even if it means paying extra… the package never arrived at the hotel last year, and yes, I’m still bitter). Planning for the costume party… even if I wimp out and don’t dress up, after all.
But the biggest thing that keeps the enthusiasm building is thinking about being with my tribe. My tribe is populated with other writers who understand that the voices in my head are characters in my next book. They’ll join me in hanging out in the lobby of the hotel coming up with entire backstories for everyone checking in. My tribe is readers who know what it’s like to stay up all night because we can’t put the book down. Or who hold off on reading the last couple chapters of a book because we don’t want to say goodbye to the characters who’ve taken up residence in our hearts.
Best of all, while other cons have large groups of readers and writers, the GRL tribe is all about people who love the exact same genre you do. You can mention the latest book by so-and-so, and three people will jump in with opinions because they read it on the flight out. You won’t get the sour lemon face because you read or write “those” books (as happened at a con last month) or the vaguely clueless expression from people who’ve never heard of m/m romance, much less read one.
My GRL tribe includes friends who’ve become family. Going to Denver will mean spending five days teasing people about their hot/cold coffee preferences and who tripped whom during years past. It means dragging my fellow introverts into discussions with strangers—and also appreciating when they do the same by dragging me out to dinner instead of letting me hole up in my hotel room. I talk to some of these friends every day online or even, occasionally, in person. Others, I only rarely talk to between conferences, sometimes only a comment here and there on each other’s Facebook walls, but our friendship seems to pick up exactly where we left off as soon as we reconnect at GRL.
Whether you’ve been going to GRL for years or this is your first time, you’ll be spending the week with your tribe. You may arrive alone, but you’ll be leaving with new friends, both real and fictional. Even if you don’t buy a single print book in Denver, you’ll be hard-pressed not to have a wish list filled with books to purchase when you get home. But leave room in your suitcase just in case. We’re your tribe, and we’ll have lots of book suggestions!
Jenna Kendrick is the author of the Hawaiian Haven and Reinvented series, contemporary and new adult romances about smart guys with a propensity for snark. Jenna went to a small college in the woods of Western Massachusetts, where she alternated between bare feet and hiking boots and used dining hall trays as a mode of transportation in the winter. She fell in love with creative writing after writing a satirical essay to get out of yet another literary analysis assignment. Unable to choose a coast or climate zone, she bounced around the country before settling in Upstate New York, where she lives with her husband and several furry creatives.
Connect with Jenna:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jennakendrickauthor
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jennakendauth
Tumblr: http://jennakendrickauthor.tumblr.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jennakendrickauthor/
Website: http://www.jennakendrick.com
(part of Felice Stevens’ Memories with the Breakfast Club Kindle Worlds project)
Jenna graciously brought a wonderful giveaway with her for our readers 🙂
A $5 Amazon gift card plus electronic copies of Make Me Believe (Book 1 of the Hawaiian Haven Series) and Stuck with You (Book 1 of the Reinvented Series)
Great post. I love finding new books for me this way.
Thank you for the post! I would like to make it to a GRL one of these years. It sounds like the perfect place for a reader like me.
I hope you have a great GRL and enjoy the time with your tribe. I would love to go someday…
Thanks for the post. it sounds like you are well on your way to being fully prepared. I would love to attend one of these some time, it sounds like so much fun.
Thanks for the post. New to me author. I liked the blurb for each book. adding to the list of buy books. Thanks for the chance
Thanks for the post. You are a new author to me. I love the sound of your books.
Great post! GRL is definitely one of my bucket list things! 🙂
Thank you for the great post. I keep hoping one of this years I’ll be able to make it to one GRL… No luck yet, though, but I keep my hopes! 😉
have fun at GRL 🙂
I’ll just sit over here and sulk 😉
Thanks for the post, I’m so excited for my first GRL!
Thank you for the post. Hope you have tons of fun at GRL
Hope you have a great GRL. It’s on my bucket list to get there one day. Went to my first MM event in the UK earlier this year and had such a great day. Totally get what you mean about being with your tribe.
Great post! Can’t wait to meet you at GRL!!
Thanks for the post. Any news when you’re going to release the Kindle Worlds Novella?
thanks,i love novellas
Have a lot of fun there
I love that you have your own tribe. Isn’t amazing that some people who have an opinion can’t seem to keep it to themselves? They must be exhausted ‘fixing’ the rest of the world and overseeing how everyone else lives.