Sold Out: Notes from the Dahlia Faire
There is a version of me, not so many years ago, who would not have believed this post.
So much fun taking pictures at all the little photo op spots. This one was sponsored by yours truly! 🌸
This past weekend, my mom and I packed up the car and drove three and a half hours to Prescott, Arizona, for the Dahlia Faire, hosted by the wildly talented Mandy Brown and her team at Black Dahlia Tattoo Studio & Bookstore.
I went as an author and sponsor.
I came home having sold out of every single Amberlight Valley book I brought with me…For the first time ever.
The Table Emptied Itself
The faire ran from noon to six. By two thirty, my entire Amberlight Valley trilogy was gone.
Every. Single. Bundle.
Before the day ever started and the bins under the table were full…
All that remained were copies of The Magic of Night, my children’s book, and by the end of the day, only one of those was left. I have set up at a lot of tables over the years. I’ve hauled boxes of books into venues, arranged displays, straightened stacks, smiled at strangers, and hoped someone might stop. I know what it feels like to sit behind a table full of books and wonder if anyone will pick one up. I have been to events where I didn’t sell a single copy of any book. I also know what it feels like, at the end of a long day, to put those same books back into their bins and haul them back home again.
This was not that. This time, I watched the stacks get smaller. Until there weren’t any left.
A Faire Full of Magick
More than seven hundred and fifty people came through the doors that day. Tattoo tables were full. The piercing station stayed busy. Every author and vendor table around me seemed to overflow with its own kind of handmade magick.
There was so much creativity packed into one space.
I got to reconnect with author friends I’ve known for years and meet new ones I hope to know for many more. I talked books with readers, watched people discover Amberlight Valley for the first time, and spent an entire afternoon surrounded by artists and makers who had brought pieces of their own imaginations into the world.
I was also incredibly proud to sponsor the Dahlia Faire this year and see my name on the sign alongside a community that worked so hard to create something this special. Mandy and her entire team at Black Dahlia absolutely crushed it, and I mean that with my whole heart.
What It Means to Be Chosen
There is something strange and beautiful about creating a world alone in your head.
You carry it around quietly for years before anyone else knows it exists. You write the characters and streets and houses and histories. You know what the air smells like and where the roads lead. You spend hundreds of hours with people who aren’t technically real, building a place you can see so clearly that sometimes you forget no one else can see it yet.
And then one day, you sit behind a table and watch person after person choose to carry a piece of that world home with them. I wrote recently about wrapping filming on The Christmas Witch and what it felt like to watch Amberlight Valley come alive in front of a cast and crew.
The Dahlia Faire felt like another version of that same magick. Different setting. Same impossible little feeling.
This world that once existed only inside my imagination is out there now. On bookshelves. On nightstands. In tote bags being carried out the door. In the hands and homes of readers I hadn’t even met when I woke up that morning. I don’t think I will ever stop being amazed by that… And I don’t ever want to.
The Drive Home
There were no bins of Amberlight Valley books to pack back into the car this time.
That means more to me than I know how to explain. I’m endlessly grateful to every single person who took an Amberlight Valley trilogy home with them, and to everyone who stopped at my table to talk with me, tell me what they were reading, ask about the valley, or simply share a little piece of their day. I’m grateful to Mandy and the entire Black Dahlia team for creating something so wonderfully bookish, creative, welcoming, and magickal. I’m grateful to my mom for making the long drive with me and being there to watch this particular little dream come true.
Prescott was beautiful. The drive was long. And it was absolutely, completely, ridiculously worth it. If I’m lucky enough to be invited back, I will absolutely be at the Dahlia Faire next year. With more books.
Definitely more books.
And a reminder… Keep making your own magick. It always matters.
