My Comic Con Report

I went to Salt Lake Comic Con, and it was a crazy weekend.

My husband and I left our house at one a.m. on Thursday morning and drove to Salt Lake City. We arrived around 10:30 a.m. and checked into our hotel. John W. Otte and his friend had already arrived and checked in to get our booth, so they came over and helped us unload the car.

We had a lot of stuff, and it took us several trips back and forth. We set up the booth and got our passes for the con. Then it opened, and people started coming in. We pretty much spent the whole time sitting or standing in our booth giving out our freebies and selling books. I gave away a free ebook sampler that you can have too, if you’d like it.

Both John and I were on writing panels, which was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. I was on five panels. Click here to see my schedule, which I posted last week.

Some panels went better than others. That mostly depended on the way the moderator handled the group. I was glad the Go Teen Writers panel was my first since it was an idea I had submitted and I was holding a copy of the Go Teen Writers book and a bunch of GTW postcards. My favorite panel was the Comic Con Writer’s Retreat Part 2. Lisa Magnum did an excellent job as moderator and the crowd seemed really excited to be there. I gave away books at every panel, but it was the Writer’s Retreat panel that I got back to the booth and found people waiting for me to sign copies of Storyworld First. That was pretty sweet.

I also got to meet Brandon Sanderson! For all you Alcatraz fans, he told me that book five is written, but Tor is re-releasing the series, so it will be a few years before book five is available. John met Howard Tayler and Kevin Anderson. I was on a panel with Kevin Anderson, who teased me for writing while I was still in bed when he writes while hiking, but I didn’t get a chance to talk to him face-to-face like John did. I was pretty overwhelmed in a couple panels, as the other panelists were famous. I sat next to Eric James Stone on the Science Fiction and Fantasy panel, and he pulled his newly won Nebula Award out of his bag and set it on the table beside his name tag. I didn’t take a picture, but he did let me touch it, so that was cool. I didn’t get pictures of me on any of these other panels since Brad had to work in the booth, so I keep Googling to see if audience members have uploaded any. So far no luck.

On one of the panels, I walked up on stage to sit down, and there was a pile of name tags on the floor under my chair. They were stuck on the chair legs, so I had to move them. And lookie what I found!

Yes, I brought it home with me as a souvenir. 😉

After my last panel, there was one hour left in the booth, then the floor closed and we packed up. It was late, so we drove as far as Twin Falls that night and stayed in a hotel before continuing the rest of the way home on Sunday. Overall, it was long, exhausting, and so much fun. I hope to go back again and again. Below is a collage of some of my pictures. Have you ever been to a Comic Con? If so, what is your favorite thing about them?