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Hello, friends!
Once again, Realm Makers has come
and gone. It’s almost worse than saying goodbye to Christmas. It’s funny,
because every year it’s like it gets easier to see it end yet at the same time
it’s harder.
Anyway, I haven’t actually done a
RM recap post since 2022. Here, have a cookie to distract you from that fact.
*brandishes plate of cookies* But for this, my fifth Realm Makers, I shall
present you with a recap. (Seriously, these are so fun to do, so why did I
stop??) Also ignore the fact that it’s literally September and I’m just now
doing this. (look, another plate of cookies!)
Okay, first, if somehow you don’t
know what Realm Makers is: it’s a writer’s conference for Christians who write
speculative fiction (aka, all the weird stuff). And it’s amazing. I’ve been so
incredibly blessed to have been able to attend for the past five years, and
every year it feels like coming home.
This year, it was actually
considerably further from home. XD Three out of the five years I’ve gone, Realm
Makers has been held in St. Louis, which is only about an hour’s drive from my
house. But this year, for the first time, it was held in Grand Rapids, Michigan—around
9 hours away. Still a lot closer than Atlantic City (*all the Realmies who
attended the 2022 conference collectively inhale at the mention of that
place*), but, well, further than normal.
This year was also different in
that it was the first ever Realm Makers Expo—which basically just means that in
addition to the conference, there was also some fun convention-type stuff going
on over in the exhibition hall. You know the vendor hall/bookstore where we all
spend way too much money? Yeah, that place. They not only had all the vendors
as usual, but a few fun activities for those only attending the Expo.
The scheduling was different this
year, too, which I’ll get into a little more later, but to begin with it means
that our journey began on Thursday morning. By “our” I mean me, my brother
Richard, and my sister Crystal. (We have another sister, too, and she’s also a
writer, but she’s never attended RM or shown her face on social media. Over on
Instagram she’s affectionately known as “the Hidden One”. XD) We headed out
around 6:30 in the morning, and in the afternoon made a stop in Logansport,
Indiana, to check out the Batman Museum, where there was a replica of the
Batcave from the old Adam West show.
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| One of many Batmobile replicas built by the museum owner! |
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| The Batcave! |
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| The Batpoles! |
We got to Grand Rapids sometime that evening, and the weather was SOO nice. We left sweltering Missouri and drove into cool, breezy Michigan, and the change in temperature was so refreshing. The hotel and conference center were literally right next to the Grand River, so although it did warm up over the weekend, it still stayed pretty nice, which I LOVED.
Anyway, checking into the hotel and
everything was pretty quick and easy (not to keep bringing this up, but again,
a vast difference from Atlantic City—our stressful arrival, check-in, and
waiting for our lost luggage to make its way to our room has kind of scarred
us), and after we were all settled in I went out to dinner with my sister and a
small group of her Quill & Flame friends. (Quill & Flame = my sister’s
publisher) We picked up food from Panera (would it be Realm Makers without
Panera??) and found a spot overlooking the river to eat. WHAT a gorgeous view.
This was honestly one of the nicest parts of the weekend—the river, the nice
weather, the sun setting, the conversation, and just the general excitement of
being in a new city with the whole conference to look forward to. It was a
fantastic way to start it all off.
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| Saw a dragon on the walk to get dinner! |
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| Me and my sister by the river |
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| SOO pretty. |
Friday is when the scheduling differences really started to throw us off. Whereas in previous years the pre-conference was on Thursday morning and the official conference opening was that same evening, this year the pre-conference was pushed to Friday morning, the opening was that afternoon, and the Realm Awards banquet was that evening. Like I said, a lot to get used to, and I wasn’t 100% sold on it. But it is what it is, and it was still a great time. It was just super strange going into the first official day and knowing the banquet would already be over with that night.
Honestly, that day is kind of a
blur, so here are some random pictures from Friday. Enjoy. XD
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| The hotel was so beautiful! This was just one of the many photo-op-worthy spots inside. |
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| Having breakfast outside while watching the city wake up, feeling like I was in a Hallmark movie or something. |
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| The skywalk we took to get from the hotel to the conference center! |
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| The Quill & Flame table with my sister's beautiful books! |
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| The conference center looked like it came out of a Marvel movie or something. XD |
We had a great opening keynote by S.D.
Smith, then it was time to start getting ready for the costume banquet! This
year I went as…
I haven’t actually talked about it here
(because I haven’t talked about anything here in like a year XD), but basically
I read SOTR right after it came out and it took over my life and shattered my
heart in a billion teeny-tiny pieces. I had another costume idea brewing in my
mind for a while, but it just wasn’t working out, so after I read the book this
popped into my head and it was pretty easy to put together. I even brought a
tunebox and a bag of gumdrops. (Oops. Sorry ‘bout the trauma.)
And here’s a little photo dump from the evening.
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| With Helena! |
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| Helena with her Most Honorable Mention certificate for her story Questing Hall! |
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| Finally got to meet Verity Buchanan! (if you haven't read her books, The Ceristen series, you should!) |
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| With Cassie! ("I brought gumdrops." "HOW COULD YOU???") |
Saturday was the first full day of
classes, and again, thinking back it’s all kind of a blur, so mainly I’m just
going to share pictures. XD I took a continuing session with Ronie Kendig and
Kathy Tyers on science fiction—very good, although I did duck out of one of the
sessions to take a nap because I was #tired. I also took Sarah Arthur’s class
on getting your writing done—something I definitely needed.
Saturday evening, instead of having
a book festival like in previous years, there was just a big book signing with
all the Realm Awards finalists. It was fine, but not having the actual book
festival was one of the biggest bummers of the weekend. It’s always been like
the last hurrah of the weekend, the time when everyone’s in the same room together
and you can talk to anyone you haven’t gotten a chance to talk to yet, or say
your goodbyes to those who are about to leave, and not having it just felt like
a big hole. I’m really hoping they bring it back next year!
Aaand now for pictures.
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| With Trissina Kear, who is the absolute sweetest! |
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| Finally met Deborah O'Carroll after YEARS of following each other online! :D |
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| It is always such a delight to see Nadine Brandes, and this year it was an extra-special delight to gush with her about the new special-edition Out of Time hardcovers. |
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| Don't ask. I don't know. |
Sunday morning they held a worship
service for the first time ever—and it was one of my very favorite parts of the
weekend. Oh, how special it was to be in a room with so many other likeminded
creatives, worshipping the God Who allowed this whole conference to be, Who weaved
all of our stories together and gave us this passion for writing. It was just
wonderful.
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| Realm Makers, the only place where there's a unicorn on the big screen at a church service. :P |
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| Closing keynote by N.D. Wilson. He's the kind of person you just want to sit and listen to and soak in every word. SO good. |
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| With Anna! (Don't ask me why I took this picture so crooked. I don't know.) |
My only class that day (technically
I had two, but I skipped one to take some time to rest) was a class by Donald
Maass, on writing great beginnings. This was one of the most fruitful parts of
the conference for me, simply because while I was sitting in that class I thought
up a new opening line for my book. Like, a really good one (at least I think
so). It’s so cool how even in moments when you’re not necessarily trying
to come up with ideas, just talking to someone or being in a class where you’re
surrounded by so much creativity and inspiration can be like a magic formula. Anyway,
if you ever have the opportunity to attend a Donald Maass class, you should do
it at least once. He really gets you thinking about how to strengthen your
story.
That evening I went to dinner with
my sister and another group of her publisher friends, and had some of the best
food of my life in a really weird restaurant with skeletons all over the walls.
XD Then later we went to an ice cream shop with my brother and his friends and had
some of the best ice cream ever. (I ate a LOT of good food over the weekend...)
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| Because ice cream is ALWAYS worth posting. |
We left on Monday morning, and stopped
on the way to briefly see Lake Michigan. I only got to take a few pictures from
the car, but wow, it was so pretty. It was kind of misty and foggy, so the lake
looked really eerie. (Wait… wrong Great Lake. XD)
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| Lake Michigan |
One of the biggest blessings of the
trip came on this day, when we were able to visit with Nicole for a
little while on our way home. Honestly, though I saw lots of awesome people at
RM and had a good time, I didn't get much chance to REALLY talk to people a lot or hang out with anybody (other than tagging along with my sister) and for a lot of the conference I ended up feeling kind of lonely. Getting to visit with Nicole even for just a short time was a perfect way
to end the weekend, and I’m so glad we got to do it. : )
And that’s my Realm Makers recap!
It’s a bit of a mess, but oh well. At least I actually did one this year. XD Although
in some ways this Realm Makers felt a bit different, one of the biggest standouts
to me was just the beautiful way the Lord has drawn this community together,
and allowed us to have this conference. He’s blessed this conference and the connections
that have grown out of it so, so abundantly, and it’s just so humbling and
beautiful. God cares, guys. He cares about our stories, and our ideas, and our
weirdness. And He does things like this to show that.
Oh, how special Realm Makers is.
And oh, how blessed I have been to be able to attend not just once, but five
times now. Next year it’s once again returning to St. Louis (seriously, how did
I get so blessed as to live so close to the most frequent RM city?? Seriously
so, so thankful), but in a new venue! So, I’m excited to not only be able to
return, but also to explore the new location. If there’s a chance I’ll see you
there, let me know!!
And that’s a wrap! Thank y’all for
reading, and as always, thanks for still coming back to my ramblings even when
it’s been months or longer since I posted. I was going to say something about
how I’m hoping to start posting more again, but, well, I say that every time
and never do, so I’m not going to say it this time and if I start posting again
it’ll just be a nice surprise. XD
All right, I’m gonna shut up for
real this time. Love you guys! < 3
