SheaCon 2023: Ask your questions!

SheaCon is a little over a month away which means it’s time for me to share an update from Chief SheaCon Planner, Cindy!

I’m very excited to announce the SheaCon panelist authors! We have four very special ladies coming, so please read below for a summary of their works. You also can submit questions beforehand for their Q&A sessions at this link: https://forms.gle/SLm7C3GCzoqu8CeL6

Hanna Sandvig is the author of the Faerie Tale Romances, a series of standalone romances based on fairy tales set in the same world(s) with connecting characters, much like Timeless Fairy Tales. The main protagonists are all from our modern world that end up interacting with the fae realm via special gates. The Rose Gate and The Glass Gate are full length novels, while The Wolf Gate and The Lily Gate are novellas. The Frost Gate will come out in January 2024.

Elisa Rae is the author of the Elves of Eldarlan and Courts in Conflict series . The Elves of Eldarlan is a set of standalone romances novellas set in a fantasy world full of elves, woodwose, gargoyles, and brownies among others. There are connecting characters, much like Elves of Lessa, and these poor male elves seem to be stuck in various interesting situations with human women. The Elven Spymaster’s Thief is the first book, and the final one, The Shadow Elf’s Mission, comes out in October. Her newest novella, The Unseelie’s Wallflower, starts a new series set in a fae court and includes fated mates.

Celeste Baxendell is the author of the Bewitching Fairy Tales, a series of standalone romances. Each novel is set in the same world and based on two mashed up fairy tales. The series starts with Stalks of Gold, and was completed with Thorns of Gold, which came out earlier this year. Celeste has a new fantasy romance series releasing in August, starting with The Prince’s Captive, and is also contributing the stand-alone novel The Wicked Prince to an author collaboration with stories from the prince’s perspective, in this case, Prince John from Robin Hood.

Charlotte Vane is the author of the Apex: Moonbound series. This paranormal romance series features werewolves, fated mates, and found family. Set in the same community, there’s a different lead couple for each novel. There are currently three books out: To Protect a Wolf, To Heal a Wolf, and To Choose a Wolf, with the next one to be called To Trust a Wolf.

ALSO, it’s that time of year again: the SheaCon planners are collecting your questions for Kitty!

SheaCon will include several Q&A panels where Kitty will answer some of the presubmitted questions collected in this poll. Unfortunately due to time constraints and *spoilers*, we cannot guarantee answers to all questions. Submit questions for Kitty: https://forms.gle/g6aDx6RKK9M1sD5C7

Deadline for questions submissions is July 6th.  And quick reminder that you don’t have to attend SheaCon on Discord to ask a question!

Quick Note from Kitty: All of the authors speaking on the SheaCon panels are considered clean. The books may have some violence (similar to my books) but the romance and language is clean. The SheaCon planners spend a lot of time reading the the books published by the invited authors so this is something they take very seriously!

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!