Sheacon 2023: Wrap Up

I’ve finally had time to upload all the Sheacon 2023 panels, so Sheacon 2023 is over but I have some extra fun for any of you who weren’t able to attend so keep reading!

First I want to give a big thank you so much to all the Champions for attending, and for being such an amazing group! All of the panels activities had great participation and you all were so much fun to hang out with, laugh, and celebrate books, which is what the original goal for Sheacon has always been. Also, a big thank you to Elisa Rae, Celeste Baxendell, Hanna Sandvig, and Charlotte Vane who were our guest authors this year.

Every year I thank the Sheacon Planners–without them none of this would have happened, and they not only started working on Sheacon 2023 months ago, they also have worked hard to make Sheacon smoother/more professional every year. Naturally, there’s a lot to thank them for! But this year I’m extra thankful, because the week before Sheacon my life fell apart with the passing of Perfect Dog, and these wonderful, kind, and caring people held down the fort while I was MIA. That week before Sheacon was probably the worst week I’ve had in these absolutely rotten last two years, and their kindness–and the kindness and cheerfulness of our community in general–was what got me through that weekend. So, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

This year’s 2023 planners were: Anneli, Jordan, Chelsc, Rachel, Zooknar, Batattack, Bluefires, Cheybri, Cwang, Eleniel, FrogPrincess994, Gwen, Lavalectrix, Louberry, Prolly, RayJay, Wish.i.was.in.a.fairytale, Witchdoctor, and Amanda.

Additionally, we had some planners–and a few additional volunteers–who acted as hosts for panels/events/games during Sheacon! They not only donated their time to be hosts, they bravely kept up the conversation while organizing games, showing us all evening star stretches, and more. So thank you, again/also, to: Anneli, Jordan, Rachel, Zooknar, Akira, Amanda, Ayrin, Batattack, Chelsc, Cheybri, Eleniel, RayJay, RoseTen, Gwen, FrogPrincess994, and Vin.

And finally a special thankyou to our Retha and Dragons dungeon masters: Zooknar, FrogPrincess994, and Jordan! (This special event wouldn’t be possible without them! If you’re wondering what Retha & Dragons is, check out the panels down below.)

This is also the perfect chance to thank and salute our Chief Sheacon Planner, Cindy. Cindy puts in serious hours organizing the conference–the scheduling she has to figure out months in advance is intense, she’s pretty much a professional chaos wrangler–and I’m so grateful for her.

Finally, I want to thank our Director of Discord, Vin, and the Mod Squad–Mythical Cat, Smasher, Batattack, Cimorrene, and Rog–for helping all the new members in our discord server who joined so they could attend Sheacon, and our Facebook Mods–Megen, Sarah, and Jocelyn–who kept our community Facebook Group apprised of everything happening for Sheacon!

Goodie Bag/Freebies

The free books that were available for Sheacon weekend are no longer available but make sure you check out all the fun new goodies I unveiled for the event this year on the Sheacon 2023 Goodie Bag post. (There was a new Magiford Short Story, and a new Rumpelstiltskin coloring page, so make sure you grab those!)

Panel Recordings

Finally–what you’ve all been waiting for! For those of you who missed out on attending in person, I have great news! Our diligent Sheacon Planners recorded all of the main panels, so you can listen to them at your leisure! (If you enjoyed these recordings, please leave a quick comment thanking the Sheacon Planners as I physically would never be able to record all of these myself!)

1. 2023 Opening Ceremony: MP3 File

2. Author Panel: Hanna Sandvig and Charlotte Vane: MP3 File

3. Kitty Q&A #1: MP3 File

4. Author Panel: Elisa Rae and Celeste Baxendell: MP3 File

5. How to Train Your Champion: MP3 File

6. Celebrity Retha and Dragons with Hanna Sanvig, Elisa Rae, Discord team members Vin and SuperRog, and a special appearance from me!: MP3 File (Special note, there is a slight glitch in this recording, about 15 seconds of audio are missing around the 8:15 mark, but it’s a hilarious event, and one of my favorites!)

7. Kitty Writing Panel: MP3 File

8. Kitty Q&A #2: MP3 File

9. Closing Ceremony and Kitty Hot Seat: MP3 File

10. Bonus: Evening Star Stretches: YouTube Video

And that’s everything for now! Because it’s been rough, I opted not to do the transcriptions this year, but thankfully I have been able to write. It looks like I’m going to be on schedule with Jade’s series, but I won’t know for sure until I hit editing time in October. It does NOT look like I’ll get any additional time to work on Retha #4 this year, but that’s okay, I’ll just tackle it first thing next year, and I did get a pretty good chunk of it done early this summer. At least I won’t be starting 2024 months behind schedule like I did with 2023. 😑 (Yes, I’m still upset about that.) Thanks for reading, Champions. I hope you enjoy listening to the panels, and thank you again to our Sheacon team.

Sheacon 2023 Goodie Bag

Sheacon 2023 is starting TODAY! Early access is available right now, in fact! (Reminder! To attend Sheacon, you’ll need to join the KM Shea Discord server! Once inside our community server, there is a special channel called “Sheacon-Announcements.” That channel contains a link to the Sheacon server–the place where the actual conference is held. If you have any problems navigating the discord server, feel free to ask questions! Vin, the Mod Squad, and the Sheacon Planners will be watching, so they can swoop in and save you!)

Once you’ve joined Sheacon sever, you’ll have access to the full schedule of events for the weekend–you can find it in the “schedule” channel! It’s also advised that you check out the server rules and info channel, and since the Opening Ceremony won’t take place until 6 PM central time, you’ve got time to explore all the activities–like puzzles–and check out the goodie bag! What is the goodie bag? I’m so glad you asked!

Every year I have a goodie bag of treats–for both Con attendees and Champions who couldn’t make it! This year, we have so much to share–important, the other attending authors/panelists have goodies to share, too, so if you’re attending Sheacon, check out the “Goodie Bag” channel on the server!

First of all the third boxset from the Timeless Fairy Tales series is free today (7/28) through Monday (7/31). This book was voted on by the newsletter Champions in my July newsletter, so thank you to everyone who voted – this boxset won by a landslide!

This boxset includes books 7-9 (Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, and Frog Prince) in the Timeless Fairy Tales series BUT if you haven’t read the earlier books you can still enjoy these stories because each book in this series is a stand-alone retelling of a popular fairy tale. This also means you can send this deal to your friends to get them to try the series and they won’t feel completely lost starting with #7 in the series.

Get the free boxset: ​Amazon.com​  |  All Other Amazon Stores​

Want to know a little more about each book?

Swan Lake – A Robin Hood-esque adventure where the cunning leader of a troop of cursed smugglers/outlaws and a clever but often overlooked prince fall in love. (Quick warning that the villain in this series is the most popular(?!) I’ve ever written and triggers a lot of feels for some people.)

Sleeping Beauty – A childhood friend to – lovers/bodyguard romance between a feisty princess who was raised to believe she was a peasant and the loyal knight sworn to protect her. (This series doesn’t have three good fairies like the Disney version but I think you will enjoy the pair of mages I included instead.)

Frog Prince – A fantasy boss/employee romance where the main male character has hidden depths and our plucky heroine, a maid who really loves cleaning, is brave enough to take on assassins with a broom. (If you read the first book in the series, Beauty and the Beast, you will love all the character crossovers that happen in this book!)

I also have a brand new coloring book page featuring everyone’s favorite fairy tale donkey:

Here’s a link to the PDF if you’d like to print this page off to color by hand, otherwise you can use the above JPEG file to color digitally! Get the PDF here

Magiford Champions might be feeling a little left out, but the best is yet to come! I have a brand new, never before seen Magiford short story for you! It’s called “Fireworks for Wizards,” and it focuses on Hazel Medeis and Killian Drake!

Click Here to read the PDF of this new short story!

Finally, we have a project for you audio lovers!

This summer the team converted my short story, “A Twisted Tale” into an audio format using AI narration, and we’ve uploaded it to Youtube for you to listen to–for free!

IMPORTANT NOTE! In the future I will only use AI narration for short stories–like A Twisted Tale–that will only be available for free on Youtube. Books, series, etc, will continue to have human narrators that will be available for purchase on Audible. (Basically, if we make any free audio stuff that I upload to Youtube, we’ll use AI narration programs since I’ll never be selling them/making a profit on them. Anything that gets packaged to sell will have human narrators!)

Listen to A Twisted Tale here!

And finally, if you’re looking for more free books check out these additional fantasy romances which are all FREE for this weekend! Click here for the full list!

You’ll recognize a several of the authors as guest authors from the current SheaCon (Charlotte Vane, Hanna Sandvig, and Celeste Baxendell all have free books for you) or previous years. Our Discord Manager, Vin, spent a lot of time vetting each author to make sure they meet the Sweet/Clean heat level but she didn’t have time to read every book they’ve ever written. Vin did her best to make sure their content matches my books however, it’s still wise to check reviews before you plunge into a new author’s books, particularly if it’s a series the author didn’t promote as part of this special.

I am so excited for this weekend, and I can’t wait to hang out with everyone! However, if you can’t come, we will have audio records of the panels available to listen to in a few weeks, so don’t stress!

That’s everything. I’ll see you at 6 pm (central time) for the opening ceremonies!

SheaCon 2023: Battle of the Sheaverse

Hail Champions! The Battle of the Sheaverse approaches!

What is the Battle of the Sheaverse?

The Battle of the Sheaverse is a 5 day series of challenges on Kitty’s Discord server leading up to SheaCon. These challenges will be set in the three main worlds of the Sheaverse. Each champion will have to decide where their allegiance lies, is it with Team Retha, Team TFT/FTE, or Team Magiford?

Beginning on Monday, July 24th, and leading up to SheaCon, a unique prompt will be posted each day to each team’s channel. (This special section of the server for the Battle of the Sheaverse will not appear until July 24th.)

Read the prompt, complete the task, and post in your team’s channel according to the instructions given. The team with the most posts (original responses to the daily post) will be crowned victor during the opening ceremonies of SheaCon!

Note from Kitty: This is the first time we are ever having a Battle of the Sheaverse and I’m so excited to watch the fun! It’s also a great way to get familiar with using Discord prior to the start of Sheacon.

If you haven’t joined my Discord server yet click here for the invite to join! Once you’re signed up click here to visit the channel at anytime!