June 2026 Update

Hey everyone. Hope things are going well for you.

Sorry for being late this month. June started in a bit of a chaotic state. That said, May was a lot of fun and so was the first weekend of June. Not to mention that The Hammer of Fate: Alone Among Stars got its release. Let’s dive in:

May-Early June Event Review:

I attended three events in May, this time over just two weekends.

The first event was the launch of Alone Among Stars at The Bookery in downtown Lebanon. It was my first time attempting such a thing, and I need to do a better job promoting next time… Even so, I had a great time talking with everyone who came in. It’s always entertaining when others see each other for the first time in years and start catching up.

From there, I hopped in the car and drove over the pass to get ready for Madras Mayfaire. This was one of my favorite events from last year (and still holds the record for best single day of sales), and this year’s edition was even grander. They took over almost all of Sahalee Park this time and had continuous entertainment to go and see. Quite a few people from last year stopped by again and told me what they thought of my books (given many bought another, it was overwhelmingly positive). The weather also cooperated this time, with the wind helping to cool us down instead of attempting to induce hypothermia. My only gripe from the day is that I was facing away from said entertainment… Oh well. You have to vend the spot you get.

After a week off, I was back in Central Oregon for Beaver State Comic-Con. As it was my first con, I wasn’t sure how it would go. It went very well. Saw a surprising number of people from this year’s Mayfaire and a few others who remembered me from my Barnes & Noble event in Bend last July, as well as a few author friends who live over there. I knew four of my row neighbors from prior years (given one was my brother, all his life) and talked a bit with a pair behind me as well. Was overall a very nice weekend and is on my list with Mayfaire as repeat events for next year.

Together, these three May events also created my best sales month of events yet. I sold 80 books between them. Mayfaire came just shy of matching its record from last year (selling 34 books), giving it an easy lead on being this year’s best day. In the meantime, Beaver State overtook Browsers’ weekend total by a single book (41; a guy bought 4 not two minutes before the con closed). A good improvement on April, and looking over my 15 months of tabling, probably hard to replicate unless I add more than the Christmas Bazaar and OHS Holiday Cheer to December.

Lebanon Strawberry Festival passed all three records immediately.

This technically should be the start of next month’s update, but I was fairly wiped after Beaver State and had a few things to work on to prepare for the Strawberry Festival, so I missed getting the update out at the start of June. It’s a good thing I did. The hometown crowd was a lot of fun. Every day I saw old classmates and church members I hadn’t seen in years. Crazy how much time has passed… I also had a number of others who recognized me from either Oregon Author Fair or Browsers and stopped to talk for a bit.

Mayfaire seems to have kicked the one strange weather day over, though. Saturday is the busiest day of the festival traditionally, and the skies that day were more temperamental than I’ve seen in a while. I think I spend the first two hours shifting my table back from the rain and then back to the front every 5-10 minutes. With everyone having sides to thier canopies for the weather, I didn’t like being back from the front as I couldn’t see down the lane. But rain isn’t good for books. The other three days were generally pleasant.

All things told, Strawberry Fair took the best weekend record with 84 books, best 2026 day with 35, and sets June up as the best month without me planning to attend anything else this month. Had a couple from Eugene buy all 5 titles as well, which was a fun experience considering they don’t overlap.

Taken together, these four events made for a very entertaining yet exhausting four weeks.

Upcoming Events in June:

None.

While I could possible hop into one of the Saturday markets, Strawberry Festival gave me a lot of bandwidth to just go through the month and not try to build the war-chest. I’ll instead plan to use the weekends for:

Writing Life:

First things first.

The Hammer of Fate: Alone Among Stars is out! I’ve been told by a few of my beta-readers that this is their favorite book so far. Glad that Ward’s tale is off to a strong start.

My focus this month is the rewrite of East of the Sun, West of the Moon. Things are lining up a lot quicker than last time; I just need to get over the case of con/fair exhaustion I’m currently in to get the word count up. Ingrid’s adventure has been a lot of fun to follow and I’m excited to get it fully fleshed out.

Reading list:

I have books to review this month! Both were audiobooks this time around, and they’re of the history persuasion.

The Eagle and The Hart: The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV by Helen Castor. I love diving into many eras of history, and The Hundred Years’ War / War of the Roses era is a leading figure in medieval times. The seeds of the War of the Roses were sown by the conflict between these two cousins and I find this book to be very enlightening on the topic. The author herself read it and did an excellent job. Very much recommend.

The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty by Caroline Alexander first came to my attention watching a History Buffs episode on the 1984 movie starring Anthony Hopkins and Mel Gibson. This is one of those episodes in maritime history most have heard of and I was curious how much more there might be. Strangely, Captain Bligh’s open boat excursion was less interesting to me than the trio of similar trips two years later which all happened because of the mutiny (involving respectively the Royal Navy Captain Edward Edwards after wrecking on the Great Barrier Reef, a band of Australian convicts replicating Bligh’s voyage to find freedom, and a schooner commandeered from some of the mutineers by Edwards later became lost without charts; all three ended up in the Dutch Indies and ran into one another). The writing can be confusing if you aren’t paying attention, as it is something of a Rashomon layout. Bligh’s account is given first in its entirety, then that of the mutineers captured by Edwards, then the accounts of those who settled on Pitcairn. As this was the way the world learned of the mutiny I understand the choice, but if you zone out on the audio you may think the book restarted a chapter. Would still recommend.

That’ll be it for this month. Time to rest and get ESWM rewritten.

Until next time. Take care, and may God bless you in the days ahead.