When originally signing up for the Romance Con event it was promised as a convention where romance readers could gather, have conversations about the genre, and get a chance to meet some of their favorite authors in the space. It was touted that there would be over 250 authors, both main stream and indie, that would be there doing panels and signings so that the attendees had the chance to interact with the authors while also getting to hear them speak on important topics and dynamics of the world of romance. However, due to some mismanagement by the team that was running the event some controversial issues had more than 80% of their authors choose to back out and not attend, so the promise of the event was greatly slashed. However, the panels that I did attend and the authors that did stay and talked on those panels gave insightful and motivating thoughts. I attended panels on topics like diverse representation, LGBTQ+ characters, body diversity, the politics of reading romance as well as fun events like Romance Trivia, a craft night and other meetups for subgenres in the romance community. I did learn a lot from getting to hear from the authors, especially when it came to topics like diversity representation an what it means to champion those issues as readers (and from my perspective as a librarian who can further promote these issues among patrons). It was a little bit of a bummer to see the management of the event drop the ball and then seemingly stop caring to put much effort into the event and show up for those attendees that did show up, but the authors and vendors that showed up made it a worthwhile experience. While there, I did learn that a local romance bookstore owner had joined forces with other businesses and local libraries to host an alternative event to support the romance reading community that had felt let down. They organized some of the authors that had backed out of the original convention to appear for panels at local libraries as well as a book crawl on the last day that spanned over a mile and included many local businesses as well as the two romances bookstores and public library. There were over 70 authors and a handful of vendors that showed up along the crawl for attendees to talk to, buy items and get them signed by the authors. I stopped by for the tail end of it and it was incredible to see how a community can come together and support one another when needed, and it was especially cool to see the local library be involved and how they stepped up and offered space. It gave me a handful of ideas as to how my own library could be more involved in community events, or even be the spearhead for new events happening. This secondary event was not the reason I went on this trip, but it was an incredible silver lining that brought forth such joy and inspiration for how libraries can be such a powerful and helpful force.
