Coastal Magic has become more than a convention for me in the few short years Jennifer Morris has been been running it. It’s become a family reunion. Every year she brings together the most amazing people and every year I feel like I’m coming home.
If you want a taste of this very awesome event, you can come to the convention February 5-8, 2015 in Daytona Beach and/or join many of us this Friday for our Scary Stories Facebook event, starting at 7 pm ET.! There’ll be spooky tales, giveaways, great authors and other seasonal goodness. Together with Paige Tyler, I host from 8-9 pm. The full schedule is available here! Also starting Friday, Jennifer is hosting on her website a week of Halloween Flash Fiction inspired by some spooky pics she’s provided. Personally, I can’t wait to see what everyone’s come up with. The pictures were very inspiring! The schedule for this event is below. I hope you’ll come join in on the fun!
James R. Tuck and me (note my nifty Gorgon Girls are Gifted shirt).
J.A. Souders and Damon Suede.
Linnea Sinclair and Graylin Fox.
Brynn Myers and Kristen Painter.
Brynn Myers and Lea Nolan.
Amanda Carlson and Ashlyn Chase.
Shannon K Butcher and Chelsea Cameron.
Molly Harper, Alex Hughes, Jess Haines and Angie Fox.
Kiernan Kelly.
Ciara Knight and Aria Kane.
Shiloh Walker and Rachel Wade.
Shanon Stidham, J.A. Souders, Sarah Miller.
The character cocktail party. Me as my Vamped series heroine Gina from when she infiltrates the vampire club in Fangtastic. The woman in the awesome steampunk costume is Ciara Knight as her heroine.
Our Fantasy Luau Meet & Greet!
Me and Janice Hardy hamming it up at our meet & greet.
J.A Souders, Melanie Bingle Marsh (photobombing) and Sarah Miller
Janice Hardy, me and J.A. Souders.
Mari Mancusi, Janice Hardy, me, Shanon Stidham, J.A. Souders, Sarah Miller.
Me and Mari Mancusi, getting in the spirit of things.
As you might be able to tell from the gallery and the number of hugs involved in these photos, the Coastal Magic Convention was wonderful, casual and, in a word, awesome. Our organizer, Jennifer Morris goes out of her way to create a fun environment where no one is up on a pedestal, no one (well, almost no one) is just talking at you, but we’re all talking =with= each other. Meet & Greets, Flash Fiction Panels, Come as your Character cocktails…you name it, we did it. To the readers and bloggers who came, I have to say YOU ARE ALL AMAZING. The boxes of books bought, the great questions and conversations…I feel like my heart grew three sizes that day, and I was no Grinch to start with. I carried my glow from the convention all the way home and then got the after con blues because we weren’t going to do it all again the next weekend. Seriously. So much fun.
If you want to hear/see more from the convention, one of Wednesday’s YA Rebels (Sarah/Aria Kane), posted a vlog last week:
And I posted an interview just today with the fabu J.A. Souders. Enjoy!
A P.S. to this post, brought on by recent events:
1- I attend Coastal Magic Con and a few other conventions during the year as an author rather than an agent, which means that I pay my own way and feel freer to be me as opposed to my agent persona, who is also me but a lot less casual and never spotted in the wild wearing a coconut bikini.
2- Anyone currently spouting sexist and bigoted diatribes who decides that the wearing of such means I “can’t” be a feminist and I’m not to be taken seriously…I’m so sorry, but didn’t you go extinct with the dinosaurs? (Anyone who doesn’t know what I’m talking about can follow this link to be clued in or this one to see my subsequent rant on the subject.)
