Viva Las Vegas! #HNS2025 is slated for Sin City, and in nothing less than Caesars Palace. The Praetorian Dog wants to know why I’m not taking him along: his name is Caesar, and after all it is HIS palace. He registers his disapproval by lying on my clothes as I pack.
The party starts on the plane in, where I realize my seatmate is Jeffrey Blount (THE EMANCIPATION OF EVAN WALLS). We met in San Diego at an author event years ago, and happily catch up as we wing through the sky to Las Vegas. The hotel is gaudy, splashy, and so over the top you can’t even see the top from the hotel lobby. I can’t think of any place better to stick a few hundred history nerds than a hotel replete with fake marble ruins. We’re all going to be twitching before we even get our room keys.
I fling my bags in my room and promptly run downstairs to embrace friends I haven’t seen, in many cases, since before the pandemic. After the opening reception I end up closing out the night with colleagues new and old: congratulating Andrea Catalano on her upcoming release THE FIRST WITCH OF BOSTON; finally getting that drink with Erin Litteken (I cover quoted her superb THE MEMORY KEEPER OF KYIV) and hearing about her jaw-dropping new book idea; catching up with my agency sister/fellow Lyonesses Chanel Cleeton and Renee Rosen; giving a hug to Susan Meissner who I left behind me in the Pacific Northwest when I moved…I stay up way too late but hey, it’s the city that never sleeps.
First official morning of the conference: jet-lag catches up to me with a wallop, and I can’t dig myself out of bed at the first alarm. I miss Sue Meissner’s opening session “Getting Past The Wall” and vow to catch the recording post-con–I hear she packed the house (of course she did!) I grab my coffee and head to “Candle-Lit In Bed: Writing Queerly” with Carrie Callaghan and Samantha Rajaram. It’s a sensitive and well-thought-out panel, and I take lots of notes.
After that, I head for Kris Waldherr’s “Tarot For Writer’s Block” — it’s a packed room with people sitting on the floor, and the session is fascinating. Whether you believe in tarot or not, Kris makes mesmerizing use of the cards as a tool to unlock creativity and get to the bottom of plotting issues–HNS conference folks, please give her a full workshop slot next time, because everyone adored this. I drew the Emperor card, and Kris asked what I thought looking at it. My answer: “I’m seeing a throne here, and I like it.”
Lunchtime brought a keynote address by my fabulous and talented friend Fiona Davis, who passionately defended our genre against the nitpickers and naysayers, and earned a huge round of applause… 
…and before I know it, it’s time for my first panel: “Pivot! Pivot! How and When to Take Your Writing in a New Direction”, with three fellow Lyonesses/agency sisters Madeline Martin, A.M. Stuart, and Eliza Knight. We all get candid talking about the intimidating moment when all of us had a realization that we needed to find a new direction for our writing or else we’d sink, and how we each managed that moment and pivoted to something more successful. We fill the room and get great questions afterward.
After that I mean to head to another panel but somehow end up sipping sauvignon blanc at a wine bar with Eliza, Madeline, Heather Webb, and Weina dai Randel–as one does. We toast Weina’s new release (THE MASTER JEWELER; superb) and trade the kind of small talk all writers do: Heather’s next book, Madeline’s WIP, Eliza’s research woes, who’s in the editing trenches and who’s stumped by the Act III doldrums.
I miss Hooch Through History, but end up heading out to a massive histfic author dinner organized by the effervescent Kristina McMorris: trying to navigate the labyrinth of the hotel, we find ourselves relying on a massive replica of Michaelangelo’s David as a landmark. “Make a left at the butt,” Kristina tells us…
“If you reach David’s naughty bits, you’ve gone too far.”
Words to live by, we all agree. A long, riotous group dinner at Caneletto in the Venetian, surrounded by fake Renaissance landmarks this time instead of fake Roman landmarks, and finally we trail off way past our bedtime.
Day 2 of #HNS2025! I’ve got a jam-packed schedule today, two panels and a Cozy Chat. The Cozy Chat comes at 8am, an hour at which I am only reluctantly awake much less in teaching mode, but I head in clutching a cup off coffee large enough to drown a small child. My topic is “Beyond The History: Finding Your Passion for More Than the Facts (And How It Will Help Your Career). I wonder if anyone will show up (8am! Wouldn’t you people rather be sleeping?) but I end up staring at a packed house in some dismay, watching people file in and sit on the floor. Gulp down my nerves and plunge in: this is really just an expansion of a realization I had after 12 books or so (I’m a slow learner) which helped me negotiate a tricky pivot from ancient world and Renaissance fiction to 20th century with THE ALICE NETWORK–namely, identifying what the core themes are that you keep returning to in your work, beyond historical period. The tropes I tend to return to are found family, unsung women of history, war and its aftermath, and the ways in which women of the past carve out spheres of independence and power for themselves when they live in eras that don’t want them to have it. If I write to those themes then I still have a Kate Quinn book, regardless of the era in which its set. We go through the room helping folks figure out what their own personal obsessions are beyond the historical era they’re playing in, and it’s genuinely fascinating seeing faces light up as they describe what they’re REALLY writing about beyond surface trappings like War of the Roses or Depression-era New York.
Our lunchtime keynote speaker is Silvia Moreno-Garcia, whose work I’ve loved since devouring her superb MEXICAN GOTHIC. I’ve got her upcoming book THE BEWITCHING on my Kindle now (thank you, Netgalley) and she holds me spellbound talking about oral history, and how the lies people tell can sometimes give you more information than the truth. I get to fan-girl over her later on, and it’s definitely a conference highlight. After that, two more panels: first “HERstory: Discovering and Writing the Feminist Historical Tale” with Madeline Martin & Judith Lindbergh. We have a blast talking about women of the past, what female power realistically looks like, and how to write strong women without devolving to the cliche of the 21st century feminist plopped into Ye Olde Days Past just so she can rail about corsets and sewing and arranged marriages.
My final panel comes at the end of the day, but it’s with Sophie Perinot, Leslie Carroll, and Margaret George, and these ladies have got energy to burn even after a full day of conferencing. We talk writing the bad guy: “Something Wicked This Way Comes: Writing the Antagonist in Historical Fiction” and have a blast. I kick things off with K.M. Weiland’s excellent advice to begin brainstorming your book with the antagonist rather than the protagonist, because the antagonist is the one after all who moves the plot and thus your hero. (If you are a Scrivener fan, I highly recommend K.M. Weiland’s fabulous free Scrivener template which comes pre-loaded with outlining and brainstorming tips like this one, and much much more.) We bring down the house.
Signing afterward; I’m right next to the sparkling Donna Russo and in between signing books for readers we gab about the Gilded Age (she has a couple of stunning novels set there) and the upcoming Season 3 about to hit airwaves courtesy of Julian Fellowes. Then it’s time for the closing reception, and how is that the conference is almost over?! I don’t get too many pics of the costume contest because I’m too busy making sure I catch up with absolutely everyone I’m not going to see again for another two years (in Pittsburgh; next con is in Pittsburgh!) but the lovely lady in the Regency frock wins the prize.
After that I’m somehow back in the wine bar with a rotating cast of friends: the pictures are blurry, the sauvignon blanc is flowing, and this is the part that stays in Vegas, under the NDA (“Not David’s Ass.”)
I’m exhausted and underslept and badly in need of the writers retreat with my agency sisters which is to follow (recap of THAT later, I promise). But #HNS2025 was as fabulous and as special as all the cons that preceded it: the industry news, the historical geekery, the precious chance to catch up with old friends in this weird and wonderful business of writing about the past–and the chance of making new friends. I already can’t wait for #HNS2027 in Pittsburgh.
