Meeting of the Minds

One of the first things I did this morning was read an email from my co-conspirator... no, wait... my partner in crime... hmmmm.  From my fellow-author and friend, Allan Ansorge.  Yeah, that's it.  Anyway, Allan and his wife Jane were on their way from their home in Wisconsin to their digs in Florida, would be passing within a very few miles of my home, and would I like to join them for coffee or some such?

Heck Yeah!

As I said, Allan is also an author, and one of the contributors to the Toys for Tots anthology, DYING IN A WINTER WONDERLAND.  Allan also has a novel being released this summer through Echelon Press, entitled CROSSING THE CENTERLINE.

Although Allan and I had never met, we had exchanged numerous emails and a few phone calls while I was pulling things together for the anthology.  I was very happy to have the chance to meet both him and his lovely lady, so we met at a convenient point at the Redbud Road exit from I-75 and from there proceeded to a nice little Mexican restaurant in Calhoun, El Nopal.

Allan is just as friendly and entertaining in person as I thought he would be from his emails, and his wife is equally charming.  We had a great time at lunch talking about kids (we both have them), books, publishers and just stuff. Allan very generously paid for lunch for us all, and Jane was kind enough to take a picture of Allan and myself standing in front of El Nopal, looking writerly.

Actually, I think we look sort of tired, but maybe that's just me.  Allan is the handsome one in the white sweatshirt. I'm the fuzzy one in gray.

They also had another passenger with them, a cute little dog whose name or breed never came up in conversation, but I believe she was either a poodle or a small spaniel of some sort.