Look alive, people! Mama’s been out about town. This time, I was lucky enough to attend Coastal Magic–a convention exclusively for authors of urban fantasy, paranormal, and paranormal romance at the Hilton hotel in Daytona Beach, Florida. It was from February 5-8, but I went Friday night and Saturday since it is a 2-hour drive from where I live. Below are some pictures and descriptions of events as well as a few of my thoughts.

On Friday night, we had Cinema Craptastic, which is like Rifftrax Live if you’ve heard of that. Our starring riffer was Damon Suede, and he was tearing into the abominable 2014 farce known as ‘The Legend of Hercules’ starring Kellan Lutz. It was glorious. We laughed ourselves silly at Damon’s commentary as well as the horrible effects and ridiculous historical inaccuracies of the movie. The hashtag we used on Twitter, “#CMCC15” trended that night and even attracted the attention of one of the actors of the film, who actually got offended by one of the author’s jabs at his awful hairstyle and silly accent during the film, which only made it funnier.

Saturday morning, I attended the “Scooby Gang” panel, which is a panel discussing the importance of supporting characters in fantasy and paranormal works. It included authors Tawdra Kandle, Coreene Callahan, Kristen Painter, Stephanie Julian, and Paige Tyler. It was very laidback and informative, just a lot of great minds sharing experiences.

The next panel I hit was a meet-and-greet of authors Molly Harper, Rane Sjodin, Damon Suede, and Angie Fox. This one I forgot to take a picture for because I was too busy laughing my ass off. The meet and greet’s subject was inappropriate stories, and boy, did these authors fit the bill. We learned all kinds of horrible jobs they’d had in the past, or bad roommates, or embarrassing moments on Twitter.

After that, we were all served lunch and met up with authors of our choice. I met Lucienne Diver, who was a lovely woman with great stories to tell and plenty of encouraging things to tell me as an upcoming author.

Above is the ‘Man Up!’ panel featuring Christopher Rice, Eric R Asher, Vaughn R Demont, and Elliot James (not in order, mind you). This panel was about the challenges male authors face when writing female characters and their thoughts on vice versa. It was a great idea with some very cool perspectives from all over. I especially enjoyed chatting with Vaughn after he mentioned his growing frustration with Jim Butcher of The Dresden Files’ evil tendency to make it seem like Harry and Murphy are going to finally get together only to yank the rug out from under us. I fangirled with him after the panel about the ending of Changes. It was very cathartic.

After that, we had the Flash Fiction panel starring Damon Suede, Lucienne Diver, Kiernan Kelly, Nancy Holzner, Lisa Kessler, Alivia Anders, and Jeffe Kennedy. If you’ve never heard of flash fiction, it’s usually an exercise where authors have a limited amount of time to write about a subject based on prompts given to them. This one was a little different. It was essentially like an episode of Whose Line Is It Anyway? The authors were given prompts from the audience and had to tell a story that tied together from one author to the next. It was hilarious. They came up with some of the strangest stories you will ever hear with ridiculous characters and all kinds of pop culture references thrown in that had us howling in our seats. For me, this was the highlight of the convention.

Then everyone started setting up for the book signing section of the day, so I decided to take a walk along the beach as the Hilton hotel on North Atlantic street is quite literally ON the beach. I haven’t been to the beach since I was a little girl, so here are just some of the things I got to see.

Finally, that night Melanie, Emily, and I briefly attended the mixer, which was music, drinks, and some dessert for us all to relax and mingle. Below are just a couple shots of the room we were in just as people began arriving.

Overall, I had a wonderful time. Assuming I am still in Florida this time next year, I will definitely go back. This time, I only went as an observer, so I only met a handful of authors and I didn’t talk about my work much because I didn’t want to seem like I was hocking it. Next year, I fully intend to give out more than a few paperbacks for the raffle and send everyone home with Black Parade related swag.

Additionally, the convention isn’t 100% for authors. Fans of the aforementioned authors are welcome to attend for meet and greets, so if you’re in the Florida area, please join them next year. I think it’s well worth it. See the website for more information and for the full list of authors who were in attendance.