Greetings, dear readers!
A lot has happened in the past month! First was OryCon up in Portland, and then came the Rainbow Awards last week. My head is still spinning from all of it, so it’s high time I sort everything out with a blog post.
First up, OryCon and my thoughts on it. I hadn’t actually planned on attending OryCon this year; I thought I’d missed my window to affordably sign up earlier in the year, so I planned to stay home and focus on writing. But a couple weeks before the event, I received a message from J.S. Fields: one of their tablemates had withdrawn, and they needed someone to take the place as the fourth table member. I crunched numbers and found I could squeeze it in. Two weeks later, with a fresh box of books and bookmarks in my car, I drove up to Portland after work and prepared for a new convention.
OryCon took place from November 8th through 10th, at the Red Lion Hotel on Jantzen Beach right at the border between Oregon and Washington. I was at the Queer Science Fiction table with three other authors: J.S. Fields, wood scientist and author of the Ardulum series; L.M. Pierce, author of the Trans Liberty Riot Brigade; and Ziggy, writer of the Crossing Wires podcast and various short stories. We were fairly close to the opening of the Dealer’s Room, with a jeweler on one side, another author on the other, and a table for selling Filk music across from us. There were quite a few authors at the convention, including friend of the table Ross Winkler, author of A Warrior’s Sacrifice a couple tables down, and multiple tables for groups of authors, like NIWA.
So, how was it all?
First off, when I was still agreeing to the convention, I was informed that OryCon a far slower convention than others in terms of sales, but high in other sorts of connections. I found this to be pretty accurate. For sales, I only sold about 11 books; it was apparently an even slower sales year than usual, and I also witnessed a lot of sales sniping from other vendors. However, those who did buy our books often came back to tell us that they’d started reading and loved what they’d read so far, and those who’d attended before received a lot of interest for the newest books in the other authors’ series.
I wasn’t on any panels myself due to my late addition, but the rest of the authors at my table got to join some, and I did attend the live podcast episode of The Overcast. Panels seemed to run smooth and have strong attendance, and they were spaced apart well enough that those attending multiple panels had ample downtime between them. There were a couple hiccups with programming (a couple panels were incredibly similar, or had descriptions altered to be different than what those who pitched the panels intended), but the actual panels themselves went off well. I also heard that the convention took a lot of feedback between last year and this one, which was good to hear.
As mentioned above, the only panel I made it to was a live recording of The Overcast podcast, run by J.S. Arquin. This was a treat to attend, not only because it was fun to be part of a live show, but because The Overcast produced one of my short stories, Hell is for Children, way back in episode 3. It was amazing to hear how far the show had come, and to get a chance to thank Arquin for taking a chance on me when we were both first starting out.
What made OryCon stand out, however, was the camaraderie. I’d never tabled with other authors before, and it was so inspiring to work with other authors, all of us in small press (with stories published by NineStar Press) but in different places of our journeys. We learned from each other, swapped publishing tips and elevator pitches, and just had a good time chatting in the moments between. Plus, there were plenty of other authors to connect with at other tables, such as talking DnD over at the NIWA table, or even hearing about the WIPs of other con attendees and volunteers.
I returned home from OryCon invigorated in a way I haven’t been from an event before. I’ve reworked parts of my overarching publishing plan, brewed new outlines and plot hooks, and even have some exciting new projects coming down the pipeline. I’ve been writing like mad and scribbling notes in a way that I haven’t been able to for months. I’m inspired. I’m excited. I feel like myself again, bubbling with ideas and ready to roll.
And yet, doubt still creeps in. It always does for authors, no matter where we are in our publishing journeys. So many plans, so much inspiration, and yet I found myself stuck working long hours at the day job (itself busy with the holiday rush), trying to balance family time during the Thanksgiving holiday with completing chores, and where was there time to write? When would I get time to make all these wonderful stories I had planned, if the dishes couldn’t just do themselves?
Then the Rainbow Awards results hit. I’d submitted Bones and Bourbon a whole year ago, but had heard dead silence on the honorable mentions front, so I assumed that it hadn’t quite hit home with the judges. I was ready to take a couple mediocre reviews with grace and congratulate the winners. Then, just before the awards started to roll out late Saturday night on the 7th, two honorable mentions arrived. Sweet, I thought! A couple good reviews, that I could be happy with.
The awards started proper. Fellow author friends hit high notes in their categories. I made a note of books to read. Then I saw the “LGBTA – Contemporary General Fiction, Fantasy & Sci-Fi / Futuristic” category. What was that in second place? Was it somehow….Bones and Bourbon?
It was. And then when the awards resumed rolling out in the morning, it also hit second in the overall “Transgender Book,” and first in the “LGBTA Debut Book” category. For once in my life, I found myself speechless.
All my ideas weren’t for nothing. All the snatched moments of writing between work shifts, all the convention rushes, all the plotting and rewriting…all of it paid off. And it’s all thanks to you, dear readers and judges.
Thank you for taking a chance on my weird and queer debut, full of monsters and broken families all trying to hold themselves together. Thank you to those who found kinship in Jarrod’s struggle to be his true self, in Retz discovering how to be his own person, and all the other journeys within. Thank you to all who laughed at the idea of carnivorous unicorns, who oohed and aahed at the cover, and let it all draw them in. And for every review posted, every time you suggested it to a friend or asked for it in your bookstores and libraries, every time you gave Bones and Bourbon a chance…
I can never thank you enough. But I can release more books I hope you’ll love, shake your hand and dedicate a signed book to you when we meet at a convention (perchance at OryCon next year?), and maybe I can start to show you a fraction of this gratitude that’s filling up my heart.
Dear readers, you’re the best.
~Dorian
Dorian Graves 