Hey everyone, for those of you in the States, I hope you all are staying warm in the snowpocalypse of 2025!

I just got home last night from Marscon. I had the opportunity to see old friends, to meet lots of new people, and to bask in the science fiction and fantasy culture.

I wasn’t on any panels this year, it looks like gremlins in the system ate my application, but I did have a table in the vendor’s room and got to see a lot of people as they came through. With everything going on in my life right now, it was kind of a relief not to have to run from panel to panel and to chill out a bit.

I had a blast talking with John Holmes, David Hensley, Mike Morton, Steve Vickers, Dan Kemp, and others of the Cannon Publishing team. They’re approaching publishing like a tactical operation complete with wrap-up AARs. If you aren’t reading their stuff, I highly recommend it, and I’m happy to be among them.

It was also great seeing a bunch of the Baen authors, especially Jason Cordova, Christopher Ruocchio, Melissa Olthoff, KC Seville. They’re all super chill people and great to strike up conversations with. They announced a couple of new books coming out soon, and some of their covers were absolutely jaw-dropping. Great stuff coming from them!

There were a host of others I met over the weekend, with a special callout to James Crawford who braved the cold, coming up from Florida. He’s got a really cool series of books, as well, and we compared notes on different conventions here in the south.

As an author, 90% of conventions are networking and talking. Selling books is nice, too, but seeing people and catching up is far more important, in my opinion.

Overall, I had a good time, my wife and son had fun, and we hope to come back next year. Thanks for reading!