The first in-person LibertyCon in three years! This is particularly significant to me because the last one, in 2019, was my very first and I attended as a pure fan. My good friend Kacey Ezell (aka Girl Kacey), invited me to it when she found herself with an extra pass. At that LibertyCon, I mentioned to Chris Kennedy that I had written a 4HU short story.
His response? “Do you have an author website? Mailing list? Facebook page?”
My head exploded because no, I had none of those things. I had A short story.
Well, here I am three years later with five books, fifteen short stories and a few more of each lined up. I had the honor of being listed as a guest at this year’s LibertyCon, I had the opportunity to sign and sell some books, and I had a fairly busy panel schedule. It was kind of surreal.
Onto the details-
I brought my wife, the lovely Cassandra, out this year for her first LibertyCon and we arrived on Thursday afternoon. We just happened to be on the same flight in as Mark Stallings and Jim Curtis. Checking into the hotel, I quick changed into my kilt, as geek conventions are my one and only chance to live the kilt life that I love so much.
Then, we met up with Alex Rath, Rick & Monalisa Foster, Brian and Tara Urbanek, Jason Cordova, Chris Smith, John Holmes, Scott Atkins, April Barr, Rick Partlow, Jeremy Levitt, Emily Levitt, Marisa Wolf, Jeremy Comeaux, Jon Osborne, Jonny Minion, Chris Woods, Brisco Woods… the list goes on and I’m sure I’m leaving a lot of people out, so please forgive me.
That night, we headed for a big dinner at Rodizio, or the “meat faucet” as we call it. Melissa Olthoff and family had just arrived, so we got to catch up with them.
That night we took over the Marriott Bar and started our big writer’s reunion weekend.
Friday
After a quick hotel breakfast, I headed over to Rob Hampson’s suite to sign some copies of As My Witnesses with him and Sandra Medlock. Tom Kratman was there as well, so I grabbed a drink and hung out for a bit.
My first scheduled event was a reading time split with David Boop. I read a passage from As My Witnesses and a piece from my upcoming work The Guilted Cage, while he read from some of his forthcoming works.
Then, I joined Rob & Sandra in author’s alley to help sell some Wrogul novels.
Around that time, Kevin Ikenberry finally got in, so we said hellos and got him over to the CKP Year ahead panel. It’s mindboggling how many different series Chris Kennedy is running these days. In 45 minutes of fast talking, he barely made it through everything.
I learned, somewhat last moment, that I had orders to attend the Opening Ceremonies so that our Master of Ceremonies, Chris Kennedy, could call us all up to sing “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling” to the Founder and Mastermind of LibertyCon, the wonderful Brandy. It was legendary.
Short on time, I grabbed a quick burger in between panels at the Marriott Bar. The bartender suggested the Smash Burger and it was a wonderful call.
Next up, I had my autograph/book selling time, which came and went in a blur.
Then, I as on No $#it There I Was w/Griffin Barber, Ian McMurtrie, Mike Massa, Justin Watson, J.F. Holmes, and I. We got the story of the Luchador, Tales of the motor pool, a range of short stories from Holmes, the story of Big Mama, and I told the story of my first alert launch.
Then, it was back to the bar for more hobnobbing. Melissa and I had the pleasure of chatting up Kevin J. Anderson for a good while.
Later that night, the big event was the JTF-13 High Hopes release party w/Hillbilly. As one would expect, the mead flowed like a river.
Saturday
Some sadistic—er, I mean wonderfully talented scheduling person put the Salvage Title universe panel at 10 am on Saturday morning, so I got up and headed over to represent. I will say I have but a single story in the Salvage universe, so I was honored (I’m using that word a lot, aren’t I?).
It was great to hear about all the exciting new things coming to the Salvage universe, particularly that fact that the Salvage Title movie trilogy is actually in development, not just optioned. Perhaps I need to get a little more involved in this before it become big. Oh, also, Melissa had a major slip of the tongue when she said she’d be incorporating my story, “Salvage Angel” into her novels. For details, find me in person some day.
Next, I had my first foray into the City Café up the street from the hotel. I fully approve of their buffalo chicken wrap and their Butterfinger cheesecake.
For the second time that weekend, I tagged onto someone else’s author table, this time to help Hillbilly sell some JTF-13 novels and to push Three Ravens Publishing in general.
That afternoon, I returned to representing Chris Kennedy’s shard universes on the This Fallen World panel. I felt a little more useful on this panel as I was apart of the recently released anthology, Among the Embers, with my story “Blue Falcon”. Moreover, I submitted my Fallen World manuscript The Guilted Cage to Chris Woods just before LibertyCon. I’ll be standing by to see what he thinks, but in the meantime I was able to announce the novel at that panel.
My biggest honor of the weekend was getting to participate in the Baen dinner, particularly as I’m not a Baen author as of yet (fingers crossed). It was great to catch up with some of my good Baen-published friends and I got to know a few more wonderful folks I’d only heard of and/or whose novels I’d read. I may have gotten a potential lead for an exciting new project.
As that cleared up, we went back to the bar for a drink, followed by the most legendary part of the evening, the Karaoke. I opened with my rendition of “’Bout Negotiation”, my Four Horsemen Depik filk version of Joan Jett’s “Bad Reputation”.
Melissa Olthoff, James Chandler, and I got up to sing our belated Songs of Valor victory song, Tubthumping by Chumbawamba—specifically on behalf of James’ winning story “A Hill to Die On”. I missed the opportunity to sing Bon Jovi’s “Wanted” in honor of Jamie Ibson’s recently released We Dare 4—Wanted: Dead or Alive because I was pulled away to settle the bar tab. I’m told my wife, Marisa, and many others did the song proud.
Finally, I headed outside where Alex Thomas was gracious enough to let me steal a few cigars. I met him three years ago on that same smoke deck at the last in person LibertyCon. It was great to catch up with him and several others. Once again, festivities ran into the wee hours.
Sunday
On this glorious morning we were finally able to enjoy the Maple Street Biscuit Company that Mark Stallings and Kevin Ikenberry had raved about. Rick and Monalisa Foster joined us, as did Scott Huggins. The Chicken and Waffles did not disappoint, though I may have to go back someday for the Chicken and Biscuits.
My first panel of the day was for JTF-13 which, as I noted earlier, just had a new release. I got to discuss my short story in the upcoming JTF-13 anthology JTF-13: Legends. My story “Blood Sacrifice” will detail the events of Addison Greene’s father in the Mexican War.
My last panel of the convention was the Four Horsemen Panel. This might have been the most heartfelt panel of the weekend as it is clear it’s exactly what the universe’s creator, Mark Wandrey, desperately needed. He later said straight out that it was incredible to see all at once everything that’s been done and all the people whose writing careers were either launched (like mine) or greatly boosted by their participation in the Four Horsemen. As the universe races toward its one hundredth book, the work that’s been done to get it there in just a few short years is mindboggling.
Afterward, some of us went to the Urban Stack for burgers, where we started saying our goodbyes to some.
The last evening was, as usual, a little bittersweet. With such an incredible rush of a weekend, seeing so many great people, it’s hard to see it end. As usual, there was never enough time to say everything we wanted to say to everyone we wanted to say it to, but we did our best. Of one major note, I spent some time that evening conspiring with Mark Wandrey over a potential 4HU Sagas novel he invited me to help him with some time back. We’ll see where that leads.
On Monday, we said our last goodbyes and had one last breakfast at the City Café. Then, as Cassie and I were left to our own devices, we visited Ruby Falls, the Battles of Chickamauga and Chattanooga Museum and Diorama, and wandered some of Chattanooga itself. We spent the evening with one Jonny Minion, a legend of a man to rival Chuck Norris, who was the only remaining LibertyCon holdout.
My experience at this LibertyCon was such a remarkable contrast to my last. I wasn’t a bright-eyed, hopeful writer with a single, unpublished story to his name who was walking around in awe of the immense sheer talent of everyone he passed by, but—Okay, I mean, I still did that—but this time it was as an author of numerous novels and short stories who got to sit on the panels himself. I know my journey is still (hopefully) in its infancy, but it’s a wonderful feeling to see how far I’ve come already.
I already can’t wait for next year.
