This last weekend was the second Booked Eau Claire event, and my first time tabling at it. I volunteered there last year, so I knew what the vibes would be overall.

I had a really good time at the event, and it gave me the opportunity to hang out with some cool people (like E.H. Lupton). Honestly it's just fun to talk with readers and other writers about stuff, and I picked up some new books that I'll be reading for a while.

"Bookish" events are so strange to me. I say this not as a criticism, but as kind of a statement of fact. While they're certainly structured and run like the fan conventions I've spent most of my life dedicated to, they're not really born out of nerd and geek spaces. On the surface you'd think they have a lot in common with the Genre Lit Cons that have persisted for the last century, but it's not really the same community or vibe. It feels like the people who attend a "bookish" event are, frankly, just way more normal than the folks I talk to on a daily basis.

Of course a lot of the other authors I spoke to were weirdos like me, so it's not like I didn't feel at home.

I know attendance numbers were down significantly from last year, and that they're having some financial issues. But to the organizer's credit, she didn't cancel, made sure the con went forward this year, and hopefully things can be recovered. I have lots of thoughts on things that could be done better (and how money could be used more efficiently), but I think it's really easy to take that all the wrong way. Running an event like this is hard, and I think that an event like Booked Eau Claire is really good for our local community.

So I'm rooting for it.