In late July, I attended Realm Makers 2025 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which happens to be close to where Descendant Publishing calls home. My wife and I kicked things off by joining Troy and Stacy Hooker at a cookout with other authors. We had a great time catching up with other author friends whom we’ve known for years, and meeting new faces for the first time. I also got the opportunity to meet my editor, Dawn Carter, along with her husband and kids in person. I love all these folks. They’re good people.

A lot of the contributors to the Allies of Majesty Chronicles: Volume 1 were there. I recently received my copy in the mail. On August 14th, it will be available on Amazon. I contributed a novelette, called Melodiel’s Rhapsody. All the works in this anthology is based on an RPG Anthony Diastello called Allies of Majesty, which is based on the works of Michael Heiser. If you’re unsure what that is, try searching for The Unseen Realm. Seeing the excitement of all the contributors to this work and their loved ones was a true pleasure. Now, I should talk about the conference!

This year’s Realm Makers included an expo for fans for the first time. There was a massive assortment of Christian creatives, authors, publishers, game designers, artists, animators, and more! It was nice to visit the expo, but my focus was on the sessions that Realm Makers had for writers. While I’ve written a couple of novels (and a noveletta), I still have much to learn and plenty of reminders needed to help me become the best writer I can be. So attending classes by Stephen James and Donald Maas was the highlight of my time at Realm Makers. I got the opportunity to introduce Donald Maas for his classes, with help from Stephanie Warner, a fellow author and podcaster. We had a lot of fun with that and I believe Donald did as well. My awesome editor and friend, Dawn, was also in attendance for all of these classes.

Other classes were happening at the same time, but I can revisit those through the Realm Makers website for the rest of the year. Essentially, I won’t miss anything. For the awards banquet I dressed up as Jareth from Labyrinth. That was a first for me. There were so many familiar and new faces at the conference and catching up with everyone as well as meeting new friends was one of my biggest priorities. I pitched Iffy Eats Monsters for Breakfast to a Penguin Random House editor, while she enjoyed the story, I don’t have a literary agent, so I put the cart before the horse with that one. Donald Maas stated I could query him, so we’ll see how that works out. I’ve queried over a dozen agents since Realm Makers. It’s hard to get representation. Literary agents have to be highly selective. Traditional publishers want what they want, and even if an agent appreciates your work and your accomplishments, they may have to pass on it.

If agents can’t take you on it isn’t the end of the world. A smaller house, such as Descendant Publishing, or self publication may be the way to go. If Iffy doesn’t match up with any literary agents right now, going either of those routes allows Iffy to come out earlier, but there would be more costs associated with it. I would have to set up a Kickstarter campaign to make it happen, which would be a lot of fun. I’ll give agents some time to decide if I’m a good fit for them before deciding.

Honestly, I think a Kickstarter would be a real fun thing to do. I could add all kinds of perks. Special editions of Infernal Fall and Almost Paradise. Meet and greets. I could do critiques with fellow authors. Create Iffy plushies as add-ons. All sorts of stretch goals could be added. And as exciting as it all is, it’ll require some planning. I’ll keep you posted in my Newsletter.

Back to Realm Makers. I got to meet Brent Weeks, an awesome author who was really cool to chat with. Sarah Arthur was a blast. Turns out she and her husband are Duke fans like my wife and me. We got a kick out of that. I enjoyed getting to meet all the keynote speakers and catching up with the faculty members of Realm Makers. They are a special group of people for sure. There was a church service on the final day, which fell on Sunday. Bradley Caffee, another talented author and friend, led the sermon. The service was truly special, and the message resonated. My dear friend, Sophia Hansen, was my nearest neighbor for that.

I look forward to future Realm Maker Conferences. If you’d like to know what Realm Makers is up to and be notified when Christian speculative fiction writers have new releases, you can go to Realmmakers.com and sign up for their free monthly newsletter and more. If you join the Realmsphere, be sure to say hello.

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