Thursday, January 3, 2013

Thursday Thirteen - 260 - 13 Highlights From My Amazing Year




1 – Having been born in the Year of the Dragon, 2012 turned out to be pretty freakin' fantastic for me, starting with the arrival of the hard copies of my debut release, SAINT SANGUINUS.



2 – My friend and fellow author Shawna Romkey gave me this first-ever moment: my first book signing during the Valentine's Hearts on Fire event for my writers' group at The Halifax Club. 



3 – In March, I attended the Women in Film and Television conference with my producer and friend Tara MacDonald, and our friend YA author Renee Pace.  



4 – Later in the spring, I attended a women's retreat at the Oak Island Inn with Tara and Shawna. A much-needed rest before a crazybusy summer.



 5 – WAY, way up at the tippy top of my joy this year: directing the book trailers for my Scorpius series. Produced by Tara MacDonald and shot by Caroline Ruyle. Best time I ever had on set.








 6 – This May I participated in Free Comic Book Day. Thanks to three local comic shops, I gave away free downloads of the e-book version of SAINT SANGUINUS, since it's a Dark Ages vampire superhero origin story. Many thanks to Giant Robot Comics, Quantum Frontier and Monster Comic Lounge.



 7 – The thrill of seeing your very own book for the first time never gets old! My second release BOUND BY DRAGONSFYRE arrived in the mail in early summer.





 8 – The book trailer for SAINT SANGUINUS won two awards!









9 – In August I signed copies of my Dark Ages vampire novel and my dark fantasy novel in the Indie Artist Alley at Fan Expo in Toronto. Many, many thanks to my friend Tara for helping me navigate this venue, and to my husband Brad who worked alongside me.










10 - Easily, the most amazing moment of this year came when I finally made contact with a friend whom my sister and I met almost 30 years ago. We met Rashid Kamalov during the 1984 Tall Ships event in Halifax, while the Iron Curtain was still firmly in place. After writing about him here on my blog many times, his email showed up in my spam folder in September, which I only looked at because of the Fan Expo contest I held.

Rashid is now my Facebook friend!

Here's what he wrote after reading the tale of our summer together which I told to readers here at A Piece of My Mind:

"Dear Juliа, thank you for the wonderful story about our meetings and for good memory about me. I carried in my heart warm feelings to Michelle and to you through all life. I am glad to know that you are well, we can email each other. It is so well you are here!" - Oct. 2, 2012 



11 – In October I attended my 10th writers' retreat with my writers' group. Already counting down the days until the next one.


12 – A few weeks later, I shared a table at Hal-Con with paranormal/sci-fi erotica author Lilly Cain. Signed more copies of my books and had a ball.







13  To cap off the Dream Come True year, I went on my second trip to New York City, sat in the red booth at the Russian Tea Room and walked into the lobby of Radio City Music Hall to watch The Rockettes Christmas Spectacular.

That's my sister with me in the red booth, and my BFF at Radio City.

SO amazing.

I can't believe it sometimes!

Thank you to all my readers who have become friends over the years. You've made the world a much, much smaller place.

Here's to 2013! Hope you're off to a fantastic start.

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