BOOKMARKS Winston-Salem NC

For me Winston-Salem is a pretty far drive. Seven hours for a one day book festival. I love a good book fest because you meet all the local authors and you get a chance to meet some awesome book lovers that are just having a good day in the sun. Well, the only problem is there wasn't much sun. In fact it was rain. Here's the really great part. A ton of people just didn;t care. The entire day people just trekked out in the rain still buying books and hanging out. I've never seen anything like it. Usually when the rain comes everyone scatters never to return. Not in Winston-Salem. They toughed it out, determined to have a good time no matter the weather.


We had a great crowd the entire day and wow, a lot of people knew what steampunk was! Seriously, at book festivals a lot of people seem to not know about steampunk but here I swear fifty percent of the crowd knew what it was. That's a really good feeling. Click here to see the article I'm in from The Winston-Salem Journal.

So we ended up going to The Foothills Brewing Company and celebrating with a few pints. Good times but the entire trip was relatively short compared to the latest jaunts to Toronto and Atlanta for Dragon Con.


Side trip to Mayberry
No kidding, I'm driving home and notice that I'm on the Andy Griffith Parkway... well, come to find out, Mount Airy, NC is where they based the town of Mayberry in the Andy Griffith Show. So naturally, I had to see it. The place was really awesome. It's just a small town with a nifty claim to fame. Sure there is some turisty stuff there but honestly, sometimes it's good to just be a tourist.


Next up
Next week is going to be insane. Tuesday and Wednesday Sept 21-22 I'll be attending the NAIBA (New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association) conference in Atlantic City, the I go directly to Baltimore, MD for the Baltimore Book fest (Booth E-29).

Steampunk Tales
I'm so happy to announce that my steampunk short story "Double Crossed at Gray Raven Mill" (Featuring Baron Bon Bar) is in the new Steampunk Tales Magazine (Issue #8). I'm in there with some amazing authors such as G.D. Falksen and Cindy MacLeod. Click here to check it out.