My second StokerCon is complete! I bought my ticket for 2027.

Not without taking a deep breath first.

I was reviewing my expenditures for the conference. Airplane tickets, hotel (not even counting my idiotic double-booking for one night, discovered too late to remedy), airport parking, food, cocktails, book purchases… I was reasonably frugal this year. And still it was a pretty big spend.

So I asked myself, “Can you really afford to do this?”

And I decided, “I can’t afford NOT to do this.”

What do I get out of StokerCon?

What it’s really about for me: purpose and belonging.

The pitch sessions are a perfect illustration. Everyone at the pitch sessions has a specific mission—throw this thing we’ve worked on out into the wild and hope someone catches it. We’re all focused on what we’re hoping and the work we’ve done to get here. But there’s genuine camaraderie in the waiting area. It’s not competitive—it’s a support group.

StokerCon reminds me that it’s worth it. All the gorgeous days when I’m indoors asking myself if I should finally kill this darling here on my 16th rewrite when I could be outside soaking up nature in a kayak or hiking up a bluff for the view—it’s worth it.

It was hard to re-enter the daily grind this time. I mean, it always is. But this time especially. I walked onto the airplane home with a renewed sense of commitment, but also with the sense that these intense, passionate, dedicated, wildly creative, undeniably odd, supportive, hard-working weirdos really are my people.

I’ve said about myself: Draw any circle around a group I might be part of, and I’ll find a way to put myself outside it. At StokerCon, the circle is big enough.

Shout-out to AuthorCon / Scares that Care, a horror author event I’ve attended three times and counting. I’m certain I get so much out of StokerCon because I’ve been to AuthorCon, my introduction to the very best that horror author culture offers.

See ya next year, Halloween People.