MiniCon begins & other news
It’s Minicon convention weekend! Also Easter weekend. As one might (or might not) discern from the convention name, this shindig takes place in the Minneapolis area. (I believe it’s technically Bloomington). It’s been held on Easter weekends for 57 years.
The convention runs Friday afternoon through Sunday. While it would be physically possible to come up Friday early AM, it’s physically and mentally wiser for me to take a travel day & rest before the excitement.
That was today.
My driving partner got the bad weather part of the drive, lots of lightning and some rain at the end of the trip, but in balance I did the Chicago Traffic portion, and I am very proud to say I drove 4 hours worth of the 6 hours. That’s an hour longer than last year and with significantly less stress than my mast attempt at highway driving…which was also last year.
The con hotel is an improvement over the previous location in a lot of ways. Bigger but also cozier layout in the events area, and the hotel rooms have been updated within the last 5 years or so. Thanks to Easter weekend being later this year AND leaving earlier, we arrived in daylight and didn’t have to stop during the trip for a meal. Evening consisted of Olive Garden comfort supper, a prowl through the convention space to get our bearings, a nice soak in the bath & reading. And writing this update.
The fun officially begins in, oh, about 9 hours now. I am expecting a fab three days hanging out with nerdy friends, doing panels with other creatives, sending home copies of my books with readers, and maybe even finding some geeky fun things to buy.
And I am glad I didn't check the final Minicon program until yesterday (because Old House Adventure ate ALL my mental bandwidth this spring.)
I am going to be on a panel w/ Lois McMaster Bujold, Naomi Kritzer, Pat Murphy, & Patricia C Wrede. <cue kermit flailing> NGL I might faint from paralytic fangirl overload.
It's like I signed up to do my favorite Taylor Swift karaoke and surprise, I'm gonna be on the stage w/Taylor Swift. NO PRESSURE.
It’s fine. I am over the moon excited. I’ll let you know how it goes.
In other topics: some exciting news about Relics From a Traveling Show. Remember a few posts ago when I mentioned I entered it in a contest for this year? Welp, one of the nice benefits of entering is placement in Biblioboard’s state-level Indie ebooks collection.
So! Relics From a Traveling Show is now live in the Indie Illinois Fantasy collection! If your Illinois public library subscribes to the service, this link should take you directly to the book: Relics From A Traveling Show.
(And if you’re not in Illinois, or your library isn’t subscribing to Biblioboard, sorry! All my ebooks are available through Cloudlibrary, Hoopla, & Overdrive, but you’ll have to request that your library add it to their collection first.)
Support your local library! Read books for free! Everybody wins.
In OTHER news, the garden is really revving up the bulb action, and most of the perennial are showing new sprouts above ground level. Earlier this week I did some winter cleanup, harvested dandelions, and put new dirt in the raised veggie beds with Spokesman’s help. I’m hoping to do some planting after I get home from the convention.
And now, the best part of any post: the Pippin pic! With bonus photos of the gray but mostly tidy garden.
Sleepy Pippin on a blanket.
Here are the raised patio beds before new dirt, but after I cleaned up most of the winter debris from the planting beds. The lawn is greening up nicely.
glamour shot of the first daffodils!