My Best-Ever Author Weekend

Lynne Cantwell medium shotI don’t mean to brag, but I had 850 people show up at my first book signing.

Okay, they might have been there to see Gene Wolfe, or Stephen R. Donaldson, or Elizabeth Bear, or Peter Straub, or Patricia McKillip, or…well, you get the idea. But I was there, too!

“There” was the 2010 World Fantasy Convention, in Columbus, Ohio. This annual convention travels to various venues around the world – last year’s was in Brighton, England – and is geared toward speculative fiction in general and fantasy in particular. Membership is capped at 850, and many of the attendees are authors, agents, and editors.

I went with friends, and we all went because Donaldson was going to be there. But one of the questions on the sign-up form was, “Are you an author?” I’d just had my first novel published by a small press, so I checked “yes” and put in the Calderwood Books website since I didn’t have one of my own yet. Not only did they believe me, but they put me on a panel. And they let me sign books with the big guys on Friday night. Continue reading “My Best-Ever Author Weekend”

“Mommy, Where Do Books Come From?”

It is one year since I published my first novel. I cannot begin to describe in a mere 750 words the journey I have made over the last year. Self-publishing is certainly a roller-coaster ride, and not for the faint of heart.

I affectionately refer to last year as “The Year of the Apocalypse.” I learned first hand what it is to battle health issues. It was not my desire to be able to evaluate the expertise of an I.V. technician, nor did I wish to experience the constipating effects of narcotics. These were realities I had to face as I struggled through the self-publishing process. You can read about the details of my health crisis on my blog here and here.

As I lay in bed after a bout with a kidney stone, I was visited by a man. I immediately knew him and there was a connection between us. Some might say that oxycodone has this effect, but I prefer the opinion of a psychologist friend. I needed this person to make me laugh and to distract me from the two surgeries that were in my immediate future. He was as real to me as if he stood in my bedroom. Continue reading ““Mommy, Where Do Books Come From?””