Christina Stiles

9-08-09

I decided to go to Dragon*Con this year in celebration of my 40th birthday, and I’m so glad I did.  I’m not much into fandom (though I did have the urge to go drool over Ben Browder at a Farscape or Stargate panel) and costuming, which are big things at the con, but it was a cost-effective way to get to meet some writers and sit in on their panels–considering I paid $80 for a ticket, and the writer conference registrations usually cost $300 or more. I also wanted to spend some time with my friend Marie, whom I haven’t seen in a few years. She’s the Extrovert to my Introvert and pushes my comfort zone to get out there and talk to folks.

And because of Marie and my new roomie friends, CiCi and Julia, who are super minions, I got to meet Sherrilyn Kenyon and get books signed (twice), and I got to have dinner with her this past Sunday night!!!!! How AWESOME is that??? And SK is one incredible lady! She’s gracious and extremely kind to her fans, and she has a great sense of humor. I also enjoyed meeting her entourage members, especially Kim, whom I hope to have further conversations with. She’s working on a YA series with SK called Nevermore that I think is going to rock!

So, what else did I do there?

I sat in on a great panel of Gary Hayes’. He had everyone start builiding a story idea from character right in the 1-hour panel. It’s a cool idea. He says no one ever goes home to write the stuff the panel comes up with, but I plan to put my own twist on it and do so.

Other panel topics included paranormal fiction, time travel, getting in the game, telling it like it is, and several more I can’t remember off the top of my head. I personally talked to Carole Nelson Douglas (very cool lady! I loved her fantasy stuff.), Sandra Chastain, Rita Herron, Anna DeStefano, Raven Hart (really great lady to talk to), Gail Z. Martin, Selina Rosen, and Alethea Kontis. I also met the co-owner of the Shard RPG. Tried to talk to Fantasy Games Unlimited’s guy, but I never got a chance to.  I ran into Misty Massey, author of Mad Kestrel (a very cool pirate book that you definitley should read), while I was searching out stuff to buy, and I saw Sean Patrick Fannon a few times, but didn’t get to game with him.

I got some contact information from a few folks, so there might be some future projects come out of the con. We’ll see!

I’ll get some D*C pics up on Facebook of some costumed folks and me with SK soon!

Alethea Kontis, Christina Stiles, Sherrilyn Kenyon