Author Pimp Thyself

I spoke at the Book of Mormon conference today about Heroes of the Fallen and it went better than I expected. The book won't even be released for almost another 2 months and already people were asking for my autograph, that's a little surreal. I signed my postcards with my book cover on the front and an excerpt on the back.

I even found a moment to hawk fellow WiDo authors books, when some people wanted to know what else was coming out. Some were especially interested in Marilyn Brown's Fires of Jerusalem. I even had one lady ask to get her picture taken with me (2 pictures) like I said I wasn't expecting that much of a reception, but at the least I know I have spread the word about Heroes of the Fallen a bit more. I even bumped into some old friends I hadn't seen in years so that was cool. Did have a few Mom's that wanted to know what I meant by a grittier story though, they wanted to know if their kids could read it. I read an excerpt and let a few more peruse some other chapter tidbits and everyone seemed to
come away feeling that it wasn't too extreme. Have I failed?

I turned over some ARC's for review to a few of the bigger named presenters Bruce Porter, Rod Meldrum and Wayne May and hope to hear some good things back soon and I also had a great time just hanging out with some of the other artists there, namely the painter David Lindsley and the sculptor Jason Millward (its their works that are shown). We discussed inspiration and all other manner of nonsense for a good long while. Moments like these make me feel like Hemingway in Paris with other artistic expatriates.

Followers of this blog know how I feel about swords, so it was really cool to see on public display for the first time since the days of Nauvoo, Joseph Smith's lieutenant generals sword. A book about it has just been released by LDS Archive Publishers. I made it a point to tell them what a service I think they provide in reprinting old out of print books.

All in all it was a good time and I expect next years (april 1st and 2nd) to be even better, it will apparently still be held at the Zermatt resort but with more organization so that at least a 1,000 people can attend instead of just this years 400. That and I will need a good sized box of books to be autographing instead of postcards.