And just like that, it was over.
After all of the excitement (and, frankly significant amounts of angst), when the day finally came it actually whizzed by at warp speed. I felt as though I’d just unpacked everything when a helpful volunteer from the Festival gently tapped me on the shoulder to let me know my time was up. I was having so much fun I absolutely hated to have to relinquish my spot, but fair is fair; besides, there was an entire next shift of Indie Authors scheduled right behind me, and I was certain they were just as eager to meet readers as I had been.
Our tent happened to be just outside one of the main venues for the Festival — something I’d not realized when I’d done my walk through on Friday. That meant we had rather significant waves of people washing over us when each session finished. I think — but can’t confirm — that the legendary J.A. Jance was the first speaker, a happy coincidence for a budding mystery author such as myself.
The weather was just as fantastic as it had been forecasted to be; that, in turn, led to an enormous crowd just as the Festival began to crank up at 9:30 this morning. Weaving my way through people with my boxes of books was more exciting than I’d anticipated, but I managed to get to my tent without spilling any of them (or my coffee). I had a few moments while I placed my materials to get to know the authors who were seated on either side of me; both, as it turned out, had written memoirs that I am planning on purchasing.
I discovered Patricia Grayhall — who hailed from Vancouver — had written a compelling work chronicling her early years as a gay physician in the 1960s and 70s; those were dark decades for both women and the LGBTQ+ community, and I look forward to reading Making the Rounds to discover how she surmounted those challenges to become the incredible person I met today.
Robin Hemley had flown in from Brooklyn, New York, and had written one of the most interesting concepts I had ever heard. His memoir, Oblivion: An After Autobiography, was designed to answer that age old question: where do writers go when they die? Not wanting to spoil it for myself, I didn’t ask what the answer was, but if the book is anything like our conversation over the few hours we had together, I’m sure it will be extremely enlightening and enjoyable.
Not being entirely sure what sort of experience to expect, I was pleasantly surprised by how many people dropped by my part of the table. Readers are always fun to talk to, especially when you have a chance to introduce them to new characters. I don’t know how many new fans I scored today, but I did hand out a ton of cards with my website on them — and sold a few books, too. To a person, everyone that took a moment to chat were genuinely interested in both me as an author and what I had written; just having those sorts of interactions alone made the entire exercise worth the effort.
Hopefully this will be an option again next year. If so, I look forward to applying again!