Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: accomplished

St. Louis Pagan Picnic

We have arrived home safe from the St. Louis Pagan Picnic. It was a wonderful trip, full of surprises and satisfaction.

Special thanks to: Elbee for inviting me; Charlynn for making the event pleasant and effective; beckyzoole and bbwoof for providing sleep space on Friday night; and janetmiles for making an unexpected and altogether delightful appearance.



My partner Doug and I arrived at the Pagan Picnic around noon on Saturday. There was time to set up some books at the author table and meet a few people. The author table was conveniently right near the Information booth, and there was plenty of space for everyone. I got to see M.R. Sellars, a writer-friend who does Pagan mysteries. I also got to meet a bunch of folks previously known only by reputation, including Ellen Dugan, Raven Grimassi and Stephanie Taylor, and Joyce and River Higginbotham. We had a wonderful time talking. While at the author table, I made my first sale and signing of the day.

My First Sale & Signing

My "Composing Ritual Poetry" workshop was interesting. It started out with just me and Tralfeyn, who is a Grey School of Wizardry student and staff member. Tralfeyn was a big help over the weekend, and has been doing a lot of computer stuff for the school. Then another person showed up, and another, and so on through most of the workshop. I presented an overview of magical/spiritual writing and then passed around worksheets for different types of poetry. Attendees had a chance to ask questions if they got stuck while writing, and to share their work with other people.

Grinning Wolf wrote this poem in the style of a Druidic triad and graciously granted permission to share it here:

Three things green I see
In the tree leaves
On the ground grass
In the grass, the one who drank too much


As it turns out, the poetry worksheets were a tremendous hit. Next time I'll know to print a lot more of them. We put the spares on the author table and they vanished very quickly. A note to my other attendees: if you'd like to share your poem from the workshop, by all means put it in a comment!

My friend janetmiles showed up at the author table, wearing a "Minion" button to match the one my partner Doug had on. It seems that the two of them had planned this long since, Janet having intended to catch me at an event once I had a book out so she could request my autograph. Squee! Extra visits from far-living friends are delightful! Plus which, it's getting to where I really do need two helpers at an event. The three of us managed to sell a respectable number of books, and keep me in decent working order, and accomplish other fun and practical things over the weekend.

Surprised by Janet

After spending Saturday at the picnic, we decided to return on Sunday. The second day, I got more networking done. This includes leads on two other events -- Spirit Awakening and Heartland -- that I may attend later. Another of the big surprises was that Ed the Pagan stopped by the author table to interview me about the Grey School, PanGaia, my new book Composing Magic and so forth. Ed's current project is developing "Magic TV" for the Pagan community. He's gathering interviews of prominent Pagans for that. Mine should be up on YouTube eventually; I'll watch for it so I can link to it from this blog. Before leaving, we got a picture of some of us together.

From left to right: Joyce Higginbotham, Elizabeth Barrette, Raven Grimassi, and Stephanie Taylor.

At the Authors' Table

On the whole, I'm very pleased with the St. Louis Pagan Picnic. I'm likely to attend again next year. I learned a lot, and I'll be able to use that to improve my merchanting skills and workshops in the future. Details on the merchants and other shopping successes will follow in a separate post.
Tags: composing magic, event report, grey school of wizardry, paganism, poetry
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  • 9 comments
lupagreenwolf

lupagreenwolf

July 16 2007, 03:04:14 UTC 13 years ago

Glad you had fun :)
ysabetwordsmith

ysabetwordsmith

July 16 2007, 03:15:52 UTC 13 years ago

One fellow I talked to was working on a book about Otherkin. I encouraged him to read your books on the topic, and asked him to send me a review copy of his when it's done. More references in this area would be good.
lupagreenwolf

lupagreenwolf

July 16 2007, 03:37:32 UTC 13 years ago

Awesome! I definitely agree that this is an area that needs more good source material. More power to him, and other aspiring authors :)
dakiwiboid

Moose will have some lovely photos for you

dakiwiboid

July 16 2007, 19:52:44 UTC 13 years ago

Now that Doug is off third shift, and now that I have a car, what would you say to a visit some time?
je_reviens

je_reviens

July 16 2007, 20:36:20 UTC 13 years ago

Great photos!
janetmiles

janetmiles

July 17 2007, 02:01:55 UTC 13 years ago

It was more fun than I can describe to show up and surprise you. I'm glad Doug got a good picture of your face!

I suspect that my trip report is going to be titled "Minion: It's a Verb".
ysabetwordsmith

ysabetwordsmith

July 17 2007, 02:24:16 UTC 13 years ago

You min very well.

An attendee

Anonymous

July 18 2007, 01:10:58 UTC 13 years ago

Hello, I'm known as Fiya I wanted to thank you for holding your workshop it was one of the worshops I went to the pagan picnic specifically to see. You are a wonderful speaker and I look forward to getting to read your book. You asked us to come and share the poems we composed in your workshop on your blog. I hadn't ever written an Acrostic poem that I can remember so I decided to try my hand at it.

Create

Could we all see our potential
Really feel it in our bones
Evoke our inner artist
And taste our power
To make our desires real
Each of us holds the key.

Again thank you
Fiya
ysabetwordsmith

Re: An attendee

ysabetwordsmith

July 18 2007, 02:12:12 UTC 13 years ago

Wow, I didn't know that my workshop was a reason for you coming to the picnic! How exciting.

Thank you for sharing your poem. I think that seeing examples from a workshop can encourage other people to try their hand at writing, or attend a workshop themselves. I'm hoping to do one on speculative poetry at Archon/NASFiC in a few weeks, but I don't have my schedule yet.

I found this fun site that helps write acrostic poetry:
http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/acrostic/