StoryFest and "The Road to Lavender"
Wow, that was kind of a hiatus that I wasn't expecting to go on. And unfortunately, I don't have a big reveal for an awesome quarantine project that I've been working on like Taylor Swift... just some reflections on the couple of things that I was able to do in the past few months, which included a lot of firsts for me.
So on July 24, I drove up to the Grand Mesa Center for the Arts in Cedaredge. Having my first in-person book event during a pandemic was so strange, conversing with people through face masks and waving at other authors at their tables on the other side of the room, but I was proud that we'd figured out a way to make it happen safely for everyone. We had our tables arranged in a path through the building so that traffic could keep moving, with a video playing in the main ballroom showing all the authors that were there.
I'll admit that I've never been very active in the writing community, mainly because of some underlying insecurities about myself as a writer that I felt were important to address on my own first. But it turns out that the best way to handle my nerves around putting myself out there was to just... do it? Which was terrifying and also very rewarding.
In June, the Blue Sage Center for the Arts in Paonia put on a writing convention called StoryFest. The whole thing took place over Zoom, starting with Craig Childs' keynote introduction on Friday night. I was technically tuned in because I was on assignment for it, but... yeah I forgot to take notes because I was so enamored with the whole thing right from the start.
Sitting in an audience and listening to someone else tell their story is fine by me. I love going to readings. But when the reader virtually points at everyone and tells them to write and then read their own stuff... OH BOY. I never thought typing out the first thing that came to my head and shooting it off in a chat function would be so nerve-wracking. But I got to hear the way everyone could build off of each other that way, creating a story together that none of us would have been able to craft individually.
Everyone was so different and had such diverse experiences with their writing, but that was the big thing we all had in common: we had a story to tell. And we were the only ones who could tell it. It was such a fantastic weekend, just connecting with so many incredible people and learning so much. I'm already saving up for my ticket for next year.
During one of the sessions, I was tuned in alongside Don Benjamin, a fellow writer at the local newspaper. He found out that I was an author as a side hustle and invited me to join his book launch the next month with about a dozen other local authors. I thought the event he had conjured up was endlessly cool, and after figuring out some schedule conflicts, I was in.
After spending two hours promoting the EquiDissoResti trilogy and gawking at all the tables of books throughout the socially-distanced venue, I drove home riding the high of not only learning to be proud of myself as a writer, but to take that pride to a situation that allowed me to truly connect with other writers. I'm so, so grateful that I was able to have that experience.
Although I don't have plans to release any projects in 2020, it's definitely been a year of major growth as far as writing goes. Finally putting myself out there as an author, learning what it's like to write full-time, and taking some much-needed space to get my behind-the-scenes organized (behold, I've made some changes to this website to make it function better on mobile and generally more efficient to navigate) has been so necessary. I've never felt more ready to start the next chapter. LET'S GO.