Announcing: FebFest!

Every summer we have SeaCon which is a fan organized event hosted on Discord with guest authors and fun activities. And this year for the first time ever, our Chief Planner Cindy and the rest of the SheaCon Planners have whipped up some extra community magic for you! Hopefully this will make the wait for The King’s Queen less painful? Anyway, here’s a message from our planners!

Come one, come all to SheaCon FebFest! For one afternoon only (Central time), Kitty’s discord server will be hosting special Sheacon activities like: Drawing with a Twist, Trial of Trivia, Bingo, and Printables. We hope to see you there on Saturday, February 25th starting at 2 pm Central time. (This event will last approximately two hours, so don’t be afraid to arrive late!) If you haven’t joined Kitty’s discord server yet, learn how to here!

I’ll be attending–hopefully I’ll have successfully finished writing King’s Queen by then, so I’ll be ready to party! See you there, and thanks for reading!

Sheacon 2022 Wrap Up

Sheacon 2022 is over, but we had such a blast! Thank you so much to all the Champions for attending, and a huge thank you to all of the Sheacon Planners for making it happen!

For those of you who missed out, I have great news! Our diligent Sheacon Planners recorded all of the panels, so you can listen to them at your leisure! Additionally, this year for the first time ever I have transcripts of several of the panels! (The Sheacon Planners get the credit for requesting transcripts AND for editing them when I got them back, so all thanks goes to them!) The transcripts are a bit of an experiment–that’s why I only got a select few done–but if you Champions really like the transcripts I’ll continue to expand our transcript offerings in the future, so comment below if you like them!

The panels:

1. Kitty interviews Joseph Lallo: MP3 File: AM Sohma fans, this is going to be your favorite panel as we discuss LitRPG, Epic Fantasy, and the difference in writing them!

2. Kitty Q&A 1: MP3 File: Transcript: Magiford, Retha, etc Q&A!

3. Fantasy/Fairy tale panel: MP3 File: Kate Stradling and Emily Deady discuss fairy tale retellings–an absolute delight for any fairy tale fans!

4. Kitty and Kimberly Rogers discuss “Big Lies Characters Tell Themselves” with a focus on Pip from Pack of Dawn and Destiny and Angelique from Fairy Tale Enchantress: MP3 File: Transcript

5. Celebrity Retha & Dragons: MP3 file: Authors Joseph Lallo, Sally Britton, Emily Deady, and our Director of Discord, Vin, have adventures in tabletop gaming hosted by Sheacon Planner Zooknar with a cameo appearance from me, Kitty! (“Begone!!”)

6. Kitty writing panel: MP3 File: Transcript: How I plot, character creation, etc:

7. Regency author panel: MP3 File: Sally Britton and Sarah Courtney discuss all things writing and regency, including Jane Austen Fan Fiction! It’s a fun listen in general, but if you like Pride & Prejudice–or Jane Austen in general–you MUST listen!

8. Kitty Q&A 2: MP3 File: Transcript: Timeless fairy tale/Fairy Tale Enchantress questions, etc

9. Champion Trivia: MP3 File:

I also had a few fun announcements! First of all, you can expect to see Court of Midnight and Deception available as audio by late September, if not earlier! Additional, The Snow Queen Saga is also getting recorded as an audiobook, and will hopefully have a September/October release! Later this winter. I will also be getting Pack of Dawn and Destiny made into audio, but I haven’t started working on it yet, so I don’t have an expected release date, though I think spring 2023 is doable. (That would be fall 2023 for you southern hemisphere folks!)

As a reminder, most of the items from the goodie bag are still available (except for the free book since that was a limited time). So make sure you grab them–here’s a link to the original goodie bag post!

I also want to thank each and every Sheacon Planner for all the hard work they put into Sheacon. They started working in February for this year’s Sheacon and conducted a slew of tasks from researching possible panelists, coming up with the trivia for the very popular “Trial of Trivia” games, teaching some of the panelists how to use discord, organizing all the questions for the panels, creating the codenames game, finalizing the art for the T-Shirts–they did so much.

So, a huge thank you to: BlueFires, Cheybri, Anneli, Batattack, Eleniel, Kimberly, Lavalextrix, TheDinosaur, LouBerry, Chelsc, Zooknar, Narel, Miriel, Vin, PumpkinPi, Rachel, Shinin4ever(Gwen), RayJay, Wertful, wish.i.was.in.a.fairytale, with a honorable mention to Mr. Chelsc for being the tech guy!

And an especially big thank you to our Head Sheacon Planner, Cindy! Cindy has superhero level powers of organization, matched with her bright and cheerful personality she becomes the hero of getting things done. I’m so grateful she came on board this year! Thanks again, Cindy!

I’d also like to thank our Director of Discord, Vin, and the Mod Squad–Mythical Cat, Smasher, and Rog–for helping all the new members in our discord server who joined so they could attend Sheacon.

Finally, I want to thank all the Champions who attended! First of all, I had so much fun hanging out with you all, laughing, and chatting. The notes you all left made me cry because they were so sweet, and all weekend I was struck by how blessed I am to have so many loyal, amazing readers. But I also wanted to thank you for being such a kind and caring community. It was so heartwarming to see how you would jump in and help any other Champions who weren’t used to discord, or the ways you would compliment one another in the “Drawing With A Twist” activity, and laugh together during rounds of bingo.

When I started writing, it was my greatest hope that I’d be able to have a community where book lovers could have fun and be excited about stories together. That hope is a reality because of you all, and it’s become so much bigger than I ever dreamed. Thank you!

Sheacon 2022 Goodie Bag

Sheacon 2022 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 Prince’s Bargain is free today (7/29) through Monday (8/1). This book was voted on by the newsletter Champions in my July newsletter, so thank you to everyone who voted!

Click here to grab your copy!

The Prince’s Bargain is about Myth, a student translator and verified book nerd, who is selected to become the Crown Prince’s personal translator. Can she survive all the politics, danger, and her charming employer?

The Prince’s Bargain is book #3 in the Elves of Lessa series, but it is a stand alone fantasy romance, so if you haven’t tried this series you can pick up this book and jump in, although for maximum enjoyment you might want to read the other two books first. Please share the news about Prince’s Bargain with anyone you think might enjoy Myth and Arvel’s story, because this book isn’t going to be on sale like this for a long time!

For the next piece in the goodie bag, we have a brand new, free short story: Between a Queen and Her Colonel: Click here for the PDF!

This short story is a series of letters sent back and forth between a particular Erlauf Queen and her Colonel husband. (If you haven’t read Cinderella and the Colonel from my Timeless Fairy Tale series, I’d recommend skipping this for now!)

We also have something that has been long requested–much to my surprise–Aldelbert’s Glory Stretches!

Click Here for the PDF!

Aldelbert is a character from my Snow White retelling, and he’s rather famous among Timeless Fairy Tale Champions for his hybrid yoga/verbal affirmation exercises. Now you, too, can join Aldelbert in his quest to intensify personal glory!

These fantastic illustrations are done by Caitlin, you can see her art here on her Instagram page! They go through a few of Aldelbert’s Glory Stretches, as show by Angelique, Snow White, and the Seven Warriors! (Individual pages will be available at a later date, but this post is already so full!)

Magiford and Retha fans, fear not, I haven’t forgotten about you! Caitlin also created some coloring pages for Retha and Magiford!

For Hall of Blood and Mercy, we have a coloring page of the famous pool scene! (Click here for the PDF!)

For Court of Midnight and Deception, we have Leila and Rigel on a coffee run with some nightmares! (Click here for the PDF)

For Pack of Dawn and Destiny we have Pip on a Pack Run! (Click here for the PDF!)

And for Second Age of Retha we have a very adorable page for Pirate Kit and Solus when the Pirates are taking them back to shore (PDF Here)  and–by popular vote–Kit on one of the crazy dwarven sheep! (PDF Here)

That’s everything in this year’s goodie bag, though I do have some fun announcements I’ll be sharing this weekend, so stick around! I hope you enjoy Sheacon 2022, Champions! I can’t wait to see you there!