I’ve finally had time to upload all the Sheacon 2023 panels, so Sheacon 2023 is over but I have some extra fun for any of you who weren’t able to attend so keep reading!
First I want to give a big thank you so much to all the Champions for attending, and for being such an amazing group! All of the panels activities had great participation and you all were so much fun to hang out with, laugh, and celebrate books, which is what the original goal for Sheacon has always been. Also, a big thank you to Elisa Rae, Celeste Baxendell, Hanna Sandvig, and Charlotte Vane who were our guest authors this year.
Every year I thank the Sheacon Planners–without them none of this would have happened, and they not only started working on Sheacon 2023 months ago, they also have worked hard to make Sheacon smoother/more professional every year. Naturally, there’s a lot to thank them for! But this year I’m extra thankful, because the week before Sheacon my life fell apart with the passing of Perfect Dog, and these wonderful, kind, and caring people held down the fort while I was MIA. That week before Sheacon was probably the worst week I’ve had in these absolutely rotten last two years, and their kindness–and the kindness and cheerfulness of our community in general–was what got me through that weekend. So, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
This year’s 2023 planners were: Anneli, Jordan, Chelsc, Rachel, Zooknar, Batattack, Bluefires, Cheybri, Cwang, Eleniel, FrogPrincess994, Gwen, Lavalectrix, Louberry, Prolly, RayJay, Wish.i.was.in.a.fairytale, Witchdoctor, and Amanda.
Additionally, we had some planners–and a few additional volunteers–who acted as hosts for panels/events/games during Sheacon! They not only donated their time to be hosts, they bravely kept up the conversation while organizing games, showing us all evening star stretches, and more. So thank you, again/also, to: Anneli, Jordan, Rachel, Zooknar, Akira, Amanda, Ayrin, Batattack, Chelsc, Cheybri, Eleniel, RayJay, RoseTen, Gwen, FrogPrincess994, and Vin.
And finally a special thankyou to our Retha and Dragons dungeon masters: Zooknar, FrogPrincess994, and Jordan! (This special event wouldn’t be possible without them! If you’re wondering what Retha & Dragons is, check out the panels down below.)
This is also the perfect chance to thank and salute our Chief Sheacon Planner, Cindy. Cindy puts in serious hours organizing the conference–the scheduling she has to figure out months in advance is intense, she’s pretty much a professional chaos wrangler–and I’m so grateful for her.
Finally, I want to thank our Director of Discord, Vin, and the Mod Squad–Mythical Cat, Smasher, Batattack, Cimorrene, and Rog–for helping all the new members in our discord server who joined so they could attend Sheacon, and our Facebook Mods–Megen, Sarah, and Jocelyn–who kept our community Facebook Group apprised of everything happening for Sheacon!
Goodie Bag/Freebies
The free books that were available for Sheacon weekend are no longer available but make sure you check out all the fun new goodies I unveiled for the event this year on the Sheacon 2023 Goodie Bag post. (There was a new Magiford Short Story, and a new Rumpelstiltskin coloring page, so make sure you grab those!)
Panel Recordings
Finally–what you’ve all been waiting for! For those of you who missed out on attending in person, I have great news! Our diligent Sheacon Planners recorded all of the main panels, so you can listen to them at your leisure! (If you enjoyed these recordings, please leave a quick comment thanking the Sheacon Planners as I physically would never be able to record all of these myself!)
2023 Opening Ceremony: MP3 File
Author Panel: Hanna Sandvig and Charlotte Vane: MP3 File
Author Panel: Elisa Rae and Celeste Baxendell: MP3 File
How to Train Your Champion: MP3 File
Celebrity Retha and Dragons with Hanna Sanvig, Elisa Rae, Discord team members Vin and SuperRog, and a special appearance from me!: MP3 File (Special note, there is a slight glitch in this recording, about 15 seconds of audio are missing around the 8:15 mark, but it’s a hilarious event, and one of my favorites!)
Kitty Writing Panel: MP3 File
Closing Ceremony and Kitty Hot Seat: MP3 File
Bonus: Evening Star Stretches: YouTube Video
And that’s everything for now! Because it’s been rough, I opted not to do the transcriptions this year, but thankfully I have been able to write. It looks like I’m going to be on schedule with Jade’s series, but I won’t know for sure until I hit editing time in October. It does NOT look like I’ll get any additional time to work on Retha #4 this year, but that’s okay, I’ll just tackle it first thing next year, and I did get a pretty good chunk of it done early this summer. At least I won’t be starting 2024 months behind schedule like I did with 2023. 😑 (Yes, I’m still upset about that.) Thanks for reading, Champions. I hope you enjoy listening to the panels, and thank you again to our Sheacon team.