Farewell Wordharvest

I attended my first Wordharvest, Tony Hillerman Conference back in 2012, the first year of my insane journey into writing. Since then it’s been an annual pilgrimage for me, a trek across the desert in the fall, always over my birthday, to Santa Fe to see how things are done in New Mexico.

Tony Hillerman

It took two days to drive down there, but that was alright because it was through some of the most beautiful country I know. Michelle would go with me and we’d make it a couple’s vacation, at least until we got there and I’d disappear in classes and she’d spend the days exploring the city. We’d attend the formal banquet and then take the short way home and make it back in a a day.

I met some great people down there, members of the tribe of writers I’ve come to appreciate so much. I’d see them only there, but every year we’d meet again and renew friendships in a strange familial way that set that conference apart. Since it was a small conference, I got to meet and befriend real heavy weights in the business. Anne Hillerman I must count as one of my most favorite people now. David Morrell and I are chums. Steve Havill was also a regular and this  year I got to buy Steve Brewer a drink. I hobnobbed with agents and Big 5 editors and met the new Tony Hillerman Prize winners and kept company with authors of all stripes. It helped my career, I won’t deny it. The knowledge and connections are invaluable and still serve me.

But all good things must come to an end. After eleven conferences spanning twelve years, the conference is no more. This year was the last one. I knew this going down this year and I won’t deny that it cast a little shadow in my heart as I hugged and talked to my friends wondering when I might see them again now that things were ending. Luckily, we have the internet and I have a car and writers run into each other if they try.

I go to a lot of conferences. I go to learn and network and just hang with my people. Each one has a different feel to it, a different vibe. Some are similar, but each is unique and none was as unique as Wordharvest. Whether it was the mystery angle, or the western scene, the Tony Hillerman fans, the contest, the mature attendees or the green chiles, it had a flavor all its own. Snow in the desert. It was distinct and wonderful and I’m going to miss it. 

Steve Brewer, Anne Hillerman and Me

At times like this I remember that great quote from Dr. Suess: "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened." I count myself lucky that I got to attend as many Wordharvests as I did and grateful I was there for the end.

When fall rolls around next year, and my birthday approaches, it’s going to feel weird not to be planning a trip to New Mexico. When that happens, I’ll make myself some green chile stew, toast my friends with a good drink, and write some words worth reading.

Again to the Desert

I’m about to set off on my third autumnal desert adventure this year. It began a few weeks ago with a trip to Arches with my friends and family. Two weeks later, I was in St. George for the Book Festival, and now, I’m making the trip to Santa Fe for the Tony Hillerman, Wordharvest Writing Conference.

I love the desert. I love fall. I really love the desert in fall.

There is something truly magical about place and time. Fall, as I’ve blogged before, is a natural trigger for anxiety for me, a call to change, for new endeavors and challenges. A dying perhaps, but also a bolt of sudden determination to achieve something while there’s still time. It’s a metaphor I guess for my writing career, started so late in life. But it’s always been that way for me. The desert meanwhile is a holy place. It is not accident to me that the God of our culture rose from the desert. There is something in the stillness of sand and distance to horizon that shrinks me and fills me with wonder that any of this is happening, my life, the world, the universe itself.

The desert of Southern Utah is taupe, crimson and rust. Sandstone. It is a redness that unites the fluid in my veins to the rock of my region, and a taupe that reminds me of my upturned palms. The season is reflected there in cottonwoods and frost, in a feeling of time different from the heat. It is a unifying point in my psyche.

I watched the sunrise over a mesa in St. George. I can’t remember the last time I actually saw the dawn like that. I was high up on a mesa — the airport actually. If you don’t know, St. George has an airport atop a central mesa. It’s amazing. The writing workshops were being held in a building nearby and I’d arrived early to get my bearings and was rewarded with seeing that sunrise. The city itself occupies space between mesas and seems to have been tucked away in a valley of fallen monoliths.

The morning sun lit up that city and cliffs. The granite temple in the center of town of course glowed with an alabaster brilliance, but more so did the crimson cliffs surrounding the people, making everything seem small but warm. The light on the rock was so vivid and deep I thought of muted lava. Trees of the season, orange and yellow leaves, the fruits of fall, caught the rays and glowed as if burning in the hues. The air was desert crisp and clear and I thought I could see forever.

My picture doesn't do it justice.

Those same clear skies were in Arches when I was there. The night was so full of stars it seemed fake after so long in the city. We picked out those constellations we knew and named the ones we didn’t, "Leroy the Melancholy on his Chariot of Cats," "The Flat Tire," and "The War of 1812." the smell of clean sand and rock, friends and family. It was another holy moment, another desert.

I’ll cross the desert again and go deeper and higher to Santa Fe. I could fly down, but the drive down is half the trip. Hours in the desert, smelling the cottonwood and sage, sands and skies, it’s an excuse in itself. The changing season, life hanging on. Transition. High in the desert, there may be snow in New Mexico to great me. It will be welcome punctuation to the lessens of the “wasteland.”

I never exit a desert the same man as I entered it, and no fall has left me unscarred.

Three trips this year. Moab, St. George and Santa Fe. Three face-to-faces with the desert, the season, myself.

Come the desert. Come the sacrament of sand and cedar. Come the turning of the world. Come make me small and wonderful.

BEATRYSEL's power to summon

There is a recurring magickal moment when I sell books in person. I have seen it many times in many places. Someone approaches my table and points to BEATRYSEL and says, "What's that?" in that one certain way. I'd not mentioned the book, I'd not pitched the demon lover, I only have BEATRYSEL out, the cover on display. It's as if they're drawn to it— summoned to it. It draws them from across a room, past other vendors, other authors, other books, past best-sellers, and famous titles, to my table, past the books with award stickers, past ELEANOR and BRAND, to the dark love tale in the winter rain to the teal circle and mournful eye.

I warn them what it is. I tell them of its origin, its accuracy, its fabric. I'd not have someone hate me for my writing, so I warn them about BEATRYSEL. And they always buy a copy and clutch it like a tome and I smile.

I know then I have a fan, I know I've met one of "those" people, one like me. It is a thrill that goes beyond the author moment and informs my view of the universe.

"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Love is the law, love under will."

—Aleister Crowley, THE BOOK OF THE LAW (LIBER AL VEL LEGIS)

THE FINGER TRAP Launch Party Announcement

Announcing the official launch party event for 

THE FINGER TRAP

Saturday, November 28, 2015 5-9 p.m.

Sugarhouse Barnes & Noble 

A modern noir, social satire, coming of age mid-life crisis detective story, 

with quiche.

Be there or be a schmuck.

2015 St. George Book Festival - On My Way!

Next week I’m heading south for my second consecutive visit with the St. George Book Festival. 

The festival runs from Monday October 19th though Saturday October 24th. There are events happening all week. I'm involved Thursday through Saturday.

Now a sister festival to the big Utah Humanities Book Festival, the St. George Book Festival is a gem in the desert. 

There’s something for everyone.

For writers it’s an opportunity to talk to people who’ve been there, who have struggled the struggles you are having. It’s a time to talk to veterans and learn moves. It’s a time to put some theoretical on your practical and some practical on your theoretical. It’s about the craft, the art, the words. It’s about fellowship.

For readers, it’s about the hows and the whys. It’s about finding art that speaks to you, that excites your soul and challenges your mind. It’s about the community of artists around you and love you more than you'll know. A celebration of verse and narrative. It’s a a chance to connect with authors and their stories and find that gem of a tale that will change your perspective forever.

For all it’s a celebration of the humanities, that most wise of all disciplines - for it is the discipline where Wisdom is taught, if it can be. It is the discipline that teaches how to think. it’s the one that challenges you to find meaning in chaos and depth in the shallows. It is the human condition. Come see how your fellow humans are dealing with it in words.

I have a book signing on Thursday at The Red Cliffs Mall Barnes & Noble (1720 East Red Cliffs Drive, St. George, UT 84790) with ELEANOR and CELESTE. Maybe a bit of BRAND DEMAND and a good hint or two of THE FINGER TRAP. Come by. Chill. Keep an old hippy company.

On Friday, I’m teaching a break out class as part of The Writer's Journey: One-day Writing Workshop at Dixie Applied Technology (E.R. Training Center). Registration begins at 8:00 a.m.  My class is called “There are no rules - here are 10,” an examination of Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing. It's a great class about style and choices, excellent information and tips for writers of all levels. Click here to sign up. It's a cheap date, a totally token fee - $5 advance, $10 at the door. This doesn't even cover the cost of the air. Considering how much great information and how many great people will be there, it's a complete steal. Steal it.

I’ll also be at the Book Expo on Saturday all day. This will be at the Spooky Town Fair - Opens to general public at 10:00 a.m. I'll be there selling books of all delicious flavors.

The whole festival is a great experience. I would not be going again if it sucked. I'll be there talking and learning and hanging out with like-minded wisdom loving bibliophiles and humans partaking of the human experience like myself. 

You should come down. Look for me. I’ll be in tie-dye.

October + Chuggie = Chugtober!

Longtime friend and writing buddy Brent Michael Kelley is doing stuff. With Chuggie. Chuggie!

During the 31 days of Chugtober Omnium Gatherum and Brent Michael Kelley are sponsoring six contests. Each contest has an exciting prize. We’re giving away witch fingers, tchotchkes, ebooks and other stuff.  There are lots of ways to earn entries.

At the end of Chugtober the person who has accrued the most entries to all the contests will win the grand prize, a 7 inch wifi Kindle Fire loaded with all the Mischief Mayhem Want and Woe books and a few extra surprises.

Contest 1: Chuggie and the Fish Eating Contest is underway. Folks can totally enlist at: 

http://www.catbat.com/bmk/chuggie-on-a-stick-the-fish-eating-contest/

Salt Lake Comic Con 2015

Got me a hat!

At Salt Lake Comic Con 2015, I had one vendor table, three guest panels, and about hundred twenty thousand friends.

It was four days of hectic mayhem. I'm including the set up day which was Wednesday. I had my good friend, Athena Jones to help me. Ben, her son by birth, mine by association helped as well. Thanks to all the other vendors who remembered their supplies - tape, pins and such, and Athena's resources, we got it together in short order.

Then the Convention began. Wow.

There's an energy in a Comic Con that's unlike anything else in the world. It's a gathering of the tribe, fans, geeks and glory. It's a collection of the most amazing wares anywhere in halls full of icons. Smiles and excitement, tired kids and dazed zealots. Cosplay, heroes, stars and celebs. Like I said, it's like being surrounded by a hundred twenty-thousand of your closest friends.

Here are some of them.

Me.

Jesus saves.

A superb Dalek. Not the droid I was looking for though.

These jokers were cool.

Nux! Shiny and chrome.

Crow and Tom. 

Johnny, Jim and Julia

Me and Jafar.

Xenomorph

Me and my neighbor, Totrro.

Timelords rule!

Awesome, but not the droid I was looking for.

It totally geeked out on the MST3K guys. They were five tables from me.

Now that's a knife.

And they had freakin' laser beams on their heads!

My vote for best Cosplay at the con.

This is the droid I was looking for.

Me and Peter Orullian

Larry Correia and I

Me and Brandon Mull

A sweet cosplay family

The biggest autograph book I'd ever seen.

My other vote for best cosplay of the Con.

Hauntingly cool.

Big shout out and thanks to the creators and contributors of Salt Lake Comic Con, Dan Farr and Bryan Brandenburg, also Blake Casselman, Ryan Call and all the volunteers for making this the best Comic Con yet and the premier geek-fest in the state! See you at Fan-X in 2016.