The Realm Award winners for books published in 2024 were announced during the fabulous banquet. One of my Elk Lake Publishing colleagues, Jason Karpf, was awarded honorable mention (second place) in the Novella category for his Through a Glass Darkly. The novel Guardian, by Cathy McCrumb, won both the Science Fiction category and overall best book of the year.  I didn’t get to meet her personally, but Cathy seemed very sweet and was quite overwhelmed emotionally during both acceptance speeches. The Fantasy category was won by Victoria McCombs with her novel, Mortal Queens. I read both this novel and her sequel, Lethal Kings, while volunteering as a judge for the Realm Awards and thought they were both quite good.

Donald Maas gave two exceptional classes again this year, ‘Power Scenes,’ and ‘No Fail Openings.’ In both classes he taught techniques for getting the reader emotionally engaged with the main characters. I definitely came away with some new ideas for my sequel to Fields of Prosperis. For anyone interested, he’s written an excellent book on writing craft, The Emotional Craft of Fiction. Kathy Tyers and Ronie Kendig gave a great continuing session on science fiction worldbuilding.