At GeekyCon last week, I was a panelist on the Lit Track. Here is the list of brilliant authors I sat and ate next to, spoke and joked with, signed books beside, and paneled amongst:

Maureen Johnson, Jason Reynolds, Courtney Summers, Jenny Han, Veronica Roth, Tahereh Mafi, Holly Black, James Moran, Cynthia Leitich Smith, Robin Wasserman, Stephanie Perkins, Ransom Riggs, Katie Rain Hill, Marie Lu, Leigh Bardugo, Sabaa Tahir, and Adam Silvera.

Seriously. I got to do that.

I felt like a seventh grader who had passed some magical test, skipped up five grades, and landed in my first-choice college. So grateful to be there, so honored, and so out of my depth. But I only felt terrified for about five minutes, because every single one of those writers is kind and welcoming and cool. They are funny, honest, wonderful people who clearly deserve their many successes, and I am incredibly lucky that I got to meet them and hear their thoughts and stories. I know I learned as much from listening to them as any of the con attendees did. Half of the time, even though I was a panelist, I felt like a glorified attendee, just listening and taking it all in. And when I wasn’t on panels, I was sitting at a table signing books and chatting with fans, who were warm and encouraging and lovely. I kept waiting for someone to pinch me, because I knew that I had to be dreaming. What a beautiful three days.

Happy to be with my old-school geeks, Melissa Anelli and Kristin Brown

I also had the pleasure of presenting a panel with one of my oldest and dearest geek friends, Kathy MacMillan, a stellar author whose debut YA, SWORD AND VERSE, will be out in January 2016. We talked about our experiences writing fan fiction and how those years helped us – and didn’t help us – on the long road to traditional publication. And another of my oldest and dearest geeks, Kristin Brown, was also there, participating in a panel where she spoke about what it’s like to create plausible geography for fictional worlds (she is the geographer of Tyme). My only regret about the whole con was that I was in a panel at the same hour and didn’t get to sit in the audience for hers.

After the con, my husband and son met me at Disney World, where we spent four days delighting in our family vacation. Now I’m back home, tired and happy and hoping very much that I’ll be invited back next year. That was an awesome experience. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

Long Live Geeky.