Pictured above are 6 of the 7 authors present at this year’s Pagan Picnic held June 10 and 11. From left: Ellen Dugan, Mickie Mueller, MR Sellars, W. Lyon Martin (yours truly!), and Joyce and River Higgenbotham.

I do believe that this year’s Picnic was the biggest and best ever. It also has to have been both the hottest and the coldest by far. We were cooked in 95°+ heat on Saturday and after a fierce onslaught of thunderstorms, wind and rain that evening on into the next day, we were looking for sweaters and shawls on Sunday while the temperature struggled to rise above 70°.

Even with the extremes of weather, and some unlucky vendors who sustained damage from the storms, the event was a huge success. After the closing ritual all the musicians got together to jam with SJ Tucker (yes, her again!). We got treated to two renditions of Mama Dragon with backup sax and (darn senior moment) other instrumentation besides SJ’s own guitar. I now have a limited quantity of SJ’s “Tangles” CD on sale at Magickware.

It was a pleasure to finally meet Ellen Dugan, who is a local author. As luck would have it, this is the first time our paths have crossed. Ellen cracked me up as she was leaving Saturday. She stated that she felt as if we had bonded in sweat. It was just that hot. I am hopeful that it won’t be another 6 years before we cross paths again, we had a blast hanging out and signing books. Of course, she had many more books to sign than I do, being a very prolific author.

I was seated between MR on my right and Joyce and River on my left. MR and I had a chance to catch up, something we were both too busy to do at Heartland. Plus I was able to come home with a pile of new books to sell from both authors. They were gracious enough to sign several copies. If you head over to my other site, Magickware, you can pick up a copy or two of your favorites.

On Sunday, I gave my workshop, almost as scheduled. We had to rush around ahead of time to find an un-muddied spot to hold it at. Once that was taken care of, I held my best attended workshop to date. I was a bit taken aback when one of the attendees told me she’d been on the Pagan Path for over 60 years. I was worried I couldn’t possibly have any wisdom to teach this lovely elder. I was quite gratified when my class ended and she thanked me for sharing my knowledge with her.

That marks the big appearance for this month. On the 25th, I will be giving a brief presentation and doing booksignings at Pathways. Other than that I will be “home-bound” until mid July. The plan is to buckle down and finish the picture book dummy for my next children’s book. I also hope to again have enough time to do the Illustration Friday weekly themes. I have been too busy preparing for and recovering from my travels to keep up with them!