Tricia Mingerink

I’m horrible at doing this recaps, and this is coming about a week late. I don’t know what it is, but time has been flying at double speed in the past week and a half. I’ll be back to the Dagger’s Sleep Read-Along later this week.

A week and a half ago, I went to the Realm Makers writers conference. It was my third year going, and it is always such an amazingly fun conference to attend.

This year, I arrived a night earlier than usual, so I visited the Gateway Arch with fellow indie authors Jaye L. Knight and Morgan Huneke (my roommates for Realm Makers this year) along with Morgan’s family (who are absolutely amazing. So much fun to hang out with them!).

Then on Thursday evening, the conference started off with a stellar opening keynote by Brent Weeks. He writes dark, general market fantasy, and I have yet to read any of his books. But I have a friend who loves them, so maybe someday I’ll pick them up.

Friday morning I had not one but two readers come up to me to ask for me to sign their books while I was eating breakfast. It was kind of surreal, and so nice to finally meet them in person!

Friday was a packed day of sessions and mentor appointments and finally the costume banquet. I got to meet Jill Williamson!!!!!!!!!!!! *fangirl squeal* Her Blood of Kings trilogy was the first Christian fantasy series that I read apart from The Chronicles of Narnia and showed me that there was a place for books that were both Christian and fantasy. I sat down to write The Blades of Acktar within a few weeks of reading her series.

My roommates and I had a lot of fun with our costumes for the banquet. Jaye even had fake zombie blood drooling down her arm. We still had dried drops of zombie blood on our sink in our hotel room’s bathroom the next day. #onlyatRealmMakers

While Dagger’s Sleep was a finalist for the Realm Award in Fantasy, it didn’t win. That honor went to the stellar Ronie Kendig. It was cool simply having Dagger’s Sleep listed alongside hers.

Even though Dagger’s Sleep didn’t win, I ended up with an official name plate and table at the Book Festival on the last night of Realm Makers, and that was fun pretending I was a big name author for a night, lol. It worked out well that I wasn’t a big name author since they were placed at the rear of the ballroom so that their lines could snake around the edges while I had the very first table right by the ballroom doors so I was easy to find.

Realm Makers was such a blast and I already miss all the wonderful people I met again or met for the first time. I can’t even begin to describe how amazing an experience the conference is, whether you are published or not-yet published or traditional or indie. It’s one big family reunion.