Life After Leaky

It's been a strange sort of transition from the four days I spent at LeakyCon to the very normalness of every day life. I'm really glad I decided to take an entire week off before going back to work. One, because I would have been completely exhausted, and two, because I think I really needed this time to process the entire experience.

There were times when I was lonely, times when I was surrounded by thousands of literal people and yet, completely alone. There were times when I felt like I didn't belong, like I was too old to be a part of this experience. Those were the hard times.

And then there were the times when I felt like I was surrounded by two thousand friends with four thousand welcoming arms, times when I danced with strangers for hours and hours, times when I laughed, times when I cried, times when I laughed until I cried.

And I was inspired.

I saw so many brilliant, funny, and kind authors, agents, editors. I watched them lie and read stories they wrote when they were teenagers. I listened to their struggles, their triumphs, their stories.

And I was reminded of my own stories.

And I was reminded that it's still important to tell them.

A selection of photos from LeakyCon 2013