Showing posts with label Fan Expo Canada. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fan Expo Canada. Show all posts

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.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Thursday Thirteen - 247 - 13 Things About My Fan Expo Author Event




1 - Nine months into being published, this August saw my third official author event, which took place at Fan Expo in Toronto Aug. 23 - 26.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank my friend Tara for helping me to navigate the hoops and hurdles involved in being an exhibitor.



2 - After flying into Toronto, I made a quick dash downtown to snag gift certificates for my Fan Expo contest--one for Bakka-Phoenix Books and one for Silver Snail. Here I am with Chris, my good friend and the manager of Bakka-Phoenix.






3 - Day 2 in Toronto became Day 1 of Fan Expo. My brother-in-law Jeff drove us first to UPS Store 421 on Front St. to pick up my boxes of books, and then a few blocks further for the load-in at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. Dino, the manager of the UPS store, had them all ready for me right by the counter. More strategic brilliance from Tara--thanks!




4 - It took awhile, but I finally got to the Artist Alley counter to pick up my exhibitor badge. Excitement was building...




5 - Once we trundled our way through the enormous convention centre and found my booth, we set up my books, along with a looped DVD showcasing my book trailers, my mom's watercolor ink prints (including her dragon print featured on the back cover of my Dragonsfyre series) and my contest for the book store gift certificates.





6 - My neighbor for Fan Expo was Alan Draven, horror and urban fantasy author.

The saying "when the student is willing, the teacher appears" pretty much sums up the cosmic placing of Alan next to me at my first convention. He sold out of his books by the last day with a few hours to spare. My husband could quote verbatim Alan's disarming pitches that stopped strolling convention goers in their tracks and ended up with a sale nine times out of ten.

He was on fiyah.





7 - The costumes of convention goers were phenomenal. I had to stop Jack Skellington for a picture.





8 - Day 2! Look at the hordes!

Look at my clear-sailing exhibitor entry. Sweet.





9 - Saw the Batman villains having lunch as I stood in the Pizza Pizza line-up. Hats off to Pizza Pizza for getting me through a 30-customer line-up in 15 minutes. And for somehow having pizza that wasn't dried-out or under-cooked.





10 - Since my blog readers voted Spike the Ultimate Vampire last October during the Take it to the Mat Ultimate Vampire Smackdown, I figured I should tell James Marsters about it, since he was at Fan Expo as well.

Okay, so he was headlining at his own panel and I was in the Indie Artist Alley, but whatever.

When I mentioned that he'd won "over the two True Blood guys," he said. "Well, that's because we had the better writers."

Spike = Ultimate Vampire

James = generous co-creator with writing team of the Ultimate Vampire





11 - My thanks to my brother-in-law Jeff, at left, for all the help with picking up the boxes of books on both Day 1 and Day 4 of Fan Expo.

To my sister-in-law Karen, second from left, for doing some early Christmas shopping!

And to my niece Pamela, at right, for getting my Dragonsfyre banner and author logo t-shirts ready for me.

Also enjoying a delicious Thai dinner out are my sister-in-law Violetta and her niece Natalia.




12 - Now that I'm back from my post-Fan Expo vacation, I held the draw for my contest last night.




13 - Whose name did I pick?

Check your email for a notice from me...

Friday, August 17, 2012

5 on Friday - Set 132


Travis at Trav's Thoughts invites everyone to lay down a short set of music that takes their fancies for his 5 on Friday meme.



This time next week, I'll be sitting at my booth

A 49

at the Indie Artist Alley, Metro Toronto Convention Centre in Toronto, Ontario signing copies of SAINT SANGUINUS and BOUND BY DRAGONSFYRE. I'll also have prints of my mom's watercolor ink piece, Stare of the Dragon available. 

If you're in the Toronto area from Aug 23-26, hope you can join me at Fan Expo!


Thurs - Aug 23 - 2:00 to 9:00

Fri - Aug 24 - 9:30 to 7:00

Sat - Aug 25 - 9:30 to 7:00

Sun - Aug 26 - 9:30 to 5:00 



In the spirit of Fan Expo and dark fantasy heroes like Scorpius, my falconer's apprentice fighting to stay one step ahead of deadly political intrigue, here's a set of my favorite fantasy film themes.

1Harry Potter theme - Hedwig's theme - composed by John Williams




2 Game of Thrones theme - composed by Ramin Djawadi






3Lord of the Rings theme- The Bridge of Khazad Dumcomposed by Howard Shore  







4300 theme - Message for the Queen - composed by Tyler Bates






5Xena: Warrior Princess theme - composed by Joseph LoDuca





Friday, August 10, 2012

5 on Friday - Set 131


Travis at Trav's Thoughts invites everyone to lay down a short set of music that takes their fancies for his 5 on Friday meme.



In two short weeks, I'll be sitting at my booth

A 49

at the Indie Artist Alley, Metro Toronto Convention Centre in Toronto, Ontario signing copies of SAINT SANGUINUS and BOUND BY DRAGONSFYRE. I'll also have prints of my mom's watercolor ink piece, Stare of the Dragon available. 

If you're in the Toronto area from Aug 23-26, hope you can join me at Fan Expo!

In the meantime, there's one more chance to vote for A Piece of My Mind for the Fascination Award. Click on this link for instructions on how to vote. Contest closes Fri the 10th at midnight EST.

In the spirit of Fan Expo and superheroes like Peredur, my Dark Ages vampire, here's a set of my favorite superhero themes.


1 -  Batman theme - composed by Danny Elfman




2 - Robocop theme - composed by Basil Poledouris  





3 - Animated X-Men theme - composed by Shuki Levy and Ron Wasserman




4 - Mad Max 2 - The Road Warrior theme - composed by Brian May





5 - Iron Man theme - composed by Ramin Djawadi





Thursday, August 9, 2012

Vote for my blog!



Voting ends tomorrow, Aug 10th--if you'd like to add your support for A Piece of My Mind, here are the instructions:


Scroll down to the Creative Writing Teacher blog section.

Go to Comments and click on the little down arrows beside the word 'comments'.

The links for the nominated blogs will appear. My blog is listed as 'julia-mindovermatter' and is the 20th one down.

You should see a + number figure in red. At this point, if you have upgraded to Google Plus, you'll also see a + 1 beside the first number. Click on the + 1 to cast your vote.

If you can't see the + 1, upgrade to Google Plus and then vote.

Thanks to all who have taken part and shown your support!




I'm also over at The Popculturedivas today, talking about where I'll be in two short weeks:



Thursday, January 5, 2012

Thursday Thirteen - 240 - 13 Things I'll Be Up To in 2012













1 - I'll start with the more personal items, although even these have writer's-life spillover.

Giving the garden some TLC. I was SO busy last year getting SAINT SANGUINUS ready to release in November, the garden was pretty much left to its own resources. As it filled out through the spring and summer, I could only mow the lawn and do emergency triage gardening. This year I'll be able to pace myself better.

2 - De-cluttering the apartment. For my husband and me, this is going to be a year-long project.

3 - Continuing with my acupuncture. For a migrainer and chronic pain sufferer like me, acupuncture has given me more concrete relief in a two-and-a-half-year time span than my previous treatment which lasted for more than a decade.

4 - Here at A Piece of My Mind:

I'll be taking part in the year-long Movie Madness Challenge.

5 - In April I will once again take part in the month-long A to Z Challenge hosted by multiple bloggers but with a central sign-up site.

6 - In November I will take part in my 5th Blog Blast For Peace.

7 - This year I'm planning to expand my author interviews to include more arts industry folk.

8 - I'll be concentrating on widening my Facebook reach.

9 - And also expanding my Twitterverse.

10 - This spring, my serialized dark fantasy tale following Scorpius, the falconer's apprentice turned lord's manservant, will be collected into novel form and self-published through Amazon and Smashwords.

11 - That will require making a non-live-action book trailer to promote it.

12 - Then I will be sending my little darlings out for reviews.

13 - And most exciting of all, I'm planning to attend Fan Expo in Toronto this August as a vendor, with both of my books.

Aug. 23rd - 26th Hope to see you there!