Wow, April has been a fanciful whirlwind of activity! The first weekend of the month kicked off a three week spree of book festivals with my inaugural event at the Houston Indie Book Fest. I didn’t realize I would meet so many wonderful people on this journey. I quickly found that if there was anything I wanted to know, Udo Hintze knew the answer. He was at the table next to me representing Tiferet. He and Jeremy certainly kept me entertained!
The next weekend found me in Little Rock for the Arkansas Literary Festival. I admit I was disappointed with the setup for this event. It was difficult for passersby to see us beyond the parking lot full of cars. Unfortunately, the traffic we saw were busy rushing to various seminars and had little interest in visiting with the authors and publishers at the vendor tables. Until Lance Turner and Daniel Seddiqui stopped by after their seminar… If you have a chance, visit Lance at Twitter @LT for his review of Daniel’s work! All in all, I suppose the lack of possible readers stopping to chat lent more time to networking with other authors, such as Amanda Stephan, Wayne Zurl, and Bob Doerr, for example. I also had a chance to visit with a publisher, editor, and reviewer…very informative. For those interested, there will be a Pulp Fest in Batesville, AR May 13-15, I believe. Not sure if I can make it yet, but the organizers are hoping to really hit their first festival out of the park!
By the final event, the Alabama Book Festival in Montgomery, I was reminded how much I enjoyed meeting readers, librarians, publishers, other authors, and aspiring young writers. What an incredible day! John regaled me with some wonderful paranormal stories. I discussed marketing and writing with Lexi George, another paranormal author. I met a couple of librarians who admitted they were not so closed minded as some librarians I have approached and would certainly be willling to consider self-published authors. I shared a table with fellow paranormal writer Evelyn M. Byrne. Evelyn’s friend, Pam, kept us in line with all sorts of creative suggestions and problem solving solutions. (Who knew zip ties, a roll of tape, and rocks could come in so handy?!)
At the last festival, one young lady stopped by for a long discussion about her ongoing writing journey and her dream of becoming an author. My advice to her? Keep at it…journal, write poems, short stories, anything, but keep it in written form not in your head. Sometimes, an author will find that ideas from the past sneak into the current work in progress. Or, maybe those ideas become the muse for future work. Letting the ideas just mull around in your head will get you nowhere, though! Let them out…see where those ideas lead you. It may be a fantastical journey to another world or simply a trip down memory lane. Wherever your ideas lead you, you will find the journey can be just as entertaining as the actual storyline, and sometimes even more so!
So what do I have in store for May? I’m thinking of a couple of smaller events. Fort Stewart, GA has been requested…anyone else with a request for upcoming events, let me know and I will try to fit them into the schedule!