Eighteen women and One man. Okay, two men if you count Billy Dee. This is going to be interesting.

The authors arrived through the afternoon and we were all really cordial at first. Many of us knew each other, but I don't think there was any author who knew everyone. We ranged from new authors to those like Beverly Jenkins that had been around the writing world awhile. Everyone was in awe of someone.

At 6, we were summoned for orientation. They showed us a movie of the last tour, but, one thing for sure, our tour was unprecedented. This had never been done with African American Authors before.

It looks like we are going to have a blast. We have a "bus mom" and a bunch of other people that are supposed to help us get where we need to be and a bus wrangler whose job it is to make sure that we are all on the bus on time and no one gets left in the middle of Podunk.

That should be interesting. And hard.

Did I say there are eighteen women?

I'll let you know how our 9 AM Roll goes tomorrow.

Nina Foxx